What is there, out in the wild?
Translated from the Spanish by Tiffany Troy
you’ll say large and undulating
green spaces
houses
austere churches
and cobblestone bridges
at times traversed
by rivers in Spanish
and others in Basque
Men who never learned how to complain about the cold
nor how to approach women.
I will tell you that there, out in the wild
there is a desert
and beaches with a rough and cold sea
cliffs shaped like cathedrals
and a wide road
And at the end
The mirage of an untidy city
the noise of those who use words for
fazing and enamoring others
which, in my coastal city, are one and the same.
I haven't laid foot on your land
but I don't need to
in order to know that the wild
you are scared of
is not the same as my own.
Ana Carolina Quiñonez Salpietro is a Peruvian poet born in Lima in 1988. She holds a master’s degree in contemporary film and audiovisual studies from Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. She has worked as a journal editor for Cosas y Caretas and collaborated with Un vice absurdo, La Ventana Indiscreta, and Ojo Dorado. Her poetry collections include Cuentos tristes que esperan las chicas antes de salir a bailar, Vacaciones de invierno, and Matacaballos. Her forthcoming collection of poems is Te encantaría aquí, es precioso. She lives in Barcelona.
Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]) and the chapbook When Ilium Burns (Bottlecap Press). She translated Catalina Vergara’s diamonds & rust (Toad Press International Chapbook Series). She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, Associate Editor of Tupelo Press, Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review, and Co-Editor of Matter.
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