domingo, 9 de septiembre de 2012

7762.- JILL McDONOUGH




Jill McDonough (Carolina del Norte, Estados Unidos)
Poeta y ensayista americana. Da clases de escritura en universidades y cárceles de Massachusetts.

OBRA:

Faith. The body. Home, Boston University, 1998
Forgotten eyes: poetry from prison, Metropolitan College, Boston University, 2000
Habeas corpus, Salt Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84471-472-8

PREMIOS:

National Endowment for the Arts fellow[6]
Fine Arts Work Center fellow
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center fellow
Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University
2010 Witter Bynner Fellowship




Tetas como martinis

El barman del Caesar’s cuenta chistes que hemos oído mil veces.
Un caballo entra en un bar, por ejemplo. Yo susurro
Sarah Evers me contó ese chiste en sexto y Josey dice
mi hermano Steve en 1982. Una puta, un enano, un chino,
nada que no hayamos escuchado. Entonces pregunta un cliente
¿En qué se parecen los martinis y las tetas? Y se echan a reír.
Se lo saben, todos se lo saben, excepto nosotras.
Ni siquiera se molestan en terminarlo. El barman sólo dice
Sí, pero yo siempre he dicho que debería haber una tercera, en la espalda,
para cuando bailas, y baila con una mujer de aire, tras la barra, su mano
sobre la teta de la espalda. Y entendemos que tres son demasiadas
y una no basta. Vale, podemos superarlo. Mis tetas me gustan
como los martinis, decimos: pequeñas y manoseadas o grandes y secas.
Perfectas. Desbordantes. Apestando a enebro, derramándose sobre la barra.
Cuando tengo migraña y ella se me insinúa digo Josey, mis tetas
son como martinis. Ella asiente, solemne: Más vale que nadie
les ponga las manos encima. ¿Cómo podríamos contarle al barman
estos chistes? No podríamos. No se enteraría. Lo digo mientras limpio
las vitrinas de la cocina y ella entiende: sucias y mojadas.
Caminando en el viento Josey dice Mis tetas son como martinis
y yo pido un taxi, sé que quiso decir heladas, temblorosas.

Versión: Julio Trujillo




Breasts Like Martinis

The bartender at Caesar's tells jokes we've heard a hundred times.
A shoelace walks into a bar, for example. I whisper
Sarah Evers told me that joke in sixth grade and Josey says
My brother Steve, 1982. A whore, a midget, a Chinaman,
nothing we haven't heard. Then a customer asks
Why are breasts like martinis? and they both start laughing.
They know this one, everybody knows this one, except
us. They don't even bother with the punch line. The bartender just says
Yeah, but I always said there should be a third one, on the back,
for dancing, dancing with the woman-shaped air behind the bar, his hand
on the breast on her back. So we figure three is too many,
one's not enough. Okay; we can do better than that. I like my breasts
like I like my martinis, we say: Small and bruised or big and dry. Perfect.
Overflowing. Reeking of juniper, spilling all over the bar.
When I have a migraine and she reaches for me, I say
Josey, my breasts are like martinis. She nods, solemn:
People should keep their goddamn hands off yours. How
could we tell these jokes to the bartender? We can't. He'll never know.
I say it after scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, and she gets it:
dirty and wet. Walking in the wind, Josey says My breasts
are like martinis and I hail a cab, know she means shaking, ice cold.




Fe: una traducción 

Downtown Crossing, en marzo: rosas, tulipanes,
narcisos en cinco cubetas de galón, acurrucadas 
en la nieve. La rubia que las vende lleva puestos unos guantes rojos.
Narcisos: diez por dos dólares. Sus delgadas
cabezas cerradas como serpientes jarreteras, pinceles. Una chica –
dieciséis, asiática, confundida– pregunta en lento y decidido
inglés por los narcisos. ¿Quién podría culparla?
¿Quién pagaría dos dólares por hierba carnosa, con una como 
lechuga bronceada en las puntas? La rubia junta sus dedos rojos
–la sombra de un pato, un gesto de chef francés– para ilustrar
floración, florecimiento. Ayudo, compro narcisos, me pregunto
si la chica es japonesa. Hablo algo de japonés, y podría decir
Sono hana ga… esa flor… ¿Alguna vez aprendí florecimiento?
Esa flor. Cerezos en flor de Tokyo, marzo. Esa flor
ahora un bebé, pronto una mujer. Ahora hay tres mujeres
comprando narcisos –¿nuestra florista contrató a la chica?– todas
reunidas, narcisos en una mano, con la otra haciendo la pantomima de florecimiento.
La chica mira de las cubetas a nuestros rostros, manos: narciso,
flor de la locura, flor del mudo entusiasmo. En la línea naranja del metro,
diez narcisos envueltos sobre mi regazo, el infalible japonés
en mi cabeza dice Mañana, esa flor gritará los buenos días.






Accident, Mass. Ave.

I stopped at a red light on Mass. Ave.
in Boston, a couple blocks away
from the bridge, and a woman in a beat-up
old Buick backed into me. Like, cranked her wheel,
rammed right into my side. I drove a Chevy
pickup truck. It being Boston, I got out
of the car yelling, swearing at this woman,
a little woman, whose first language was not English.
But she lived and drove in Boston, too, so she knew,
we both knew, that the thing to do
is get out of the car, slam the door
as hard as you fucking can and yell things like What the fuck
were you thinking? You fucking blind? What the fuck
is going on? Jesus Christ! So we swore
at each other with perfect posture, unnaturally angled
chins. I threw my arms around, sudden 
jerking motions with my whole arms, the backs
of my hands toward where she had hit my truck.

But she hadn't hit my truck. She hit
the tire; no damage done. Her car
was fine, too. We saw this while 
we were yelling, and then we were stuck.
The next line in our little drama should have been
Look at this fucking dent! I'm not paying for this
shit. I'm calling the cops, lady. Maybe we'd throw in a
You're in big trouble, sister, or I just hope for your sake
there's nothing wrong with my fucking suspension, that
sort of thing. But there was no fucking dent. There
was nothing else for us to do. So I 
stopped yelling, and she looked at the tire she'd
backed into, her little eyebrows pursed
and worried. She was clearly in the wrong, I was enormous,
and I'd been acting as if I'd like to hit her. So I said
Well, there's nothing wrong with my car, nothing wrong 
with your car...are you OK? She nodded, and started
to cry, so I put my arms around her and I held her, middle 
of the street, Mass. Ave., Boston, a couple blocks from the bridge.
I hugged her, and I said We were scared, weren't we?
and she nodded and we laughed.

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