January 2020
George Franklin
Franklin@nelsonfranklin.com
Bio Note:  George Franklin is the author of two poetry collections: Traveling for No Good Reason (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) and a bilingual collection, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores). He practices law in Miami, teaches poetry workshops in Florida state prisons, and most recently is the co-translator, along with the author, of Ximena Gómez's Último día/Last Day (Katakana Editores).

Agua
     For Ximena Gómez

Am I any closer to knowing you here, where you grew up—
One of three sisters, like in Chekhov—in a valley hugging
The Cauca River, mountains blue as rain in the distance?

Upstairs at the nursing home, your father grows thinner,
And you give him water by the spoonful, so he won’t choke. He
Calls you mijita and asks you to close the window. His

Face has shrunk to bones and cartilage. His eyes are large and
Searching. There are neighborhoods in Cali where you walked,
Looking at birds and bougainvillea, the impenetrable green

Of the future. We haven’t had time to see the places you lived,
For you to tell me what you fantasized as you stepped over
Cracks in the sidewalk, dodged traffic. The first days we were

Here, your father learned my name, but now he’s forgotten it.
He thinks I’m “Jaime” and can’t be convinced otherwise. Will
We all end up like this? In the garden below, there are birdsongs

I don’t recognize, but plants that I do: heliconia and bird of
Paradise, ginger blossoms red as candy and that kind of ginger
With the white blossoms too. Yesterday, there was a huge cat

Observing everything, and a turtle that stopped to look at me
Reading, then strolled off, scratching his small black nails
Against the concrete. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.

When you leave the place you were raised, it ceases to exist, and
You cease to exist in the same way. The signs are changed
Above the shops, the highways become more crowded. Now,

Everyone has motorcycles. I imagine you reading Freud in
That massive library or maybe Spinoza, your thoughts drifting
To coffee and dancing salsa with your friends, or listening to

Estanislao Zuleta disparage his contemporaries. How far is it
From Colombia to Miami, to your apartment in Midtown, to
Translating the narratives of immigrants asking for asylum—

Venezuelans who don’t want to be sent back to die or
To beg in the streets of Cali or some other place? Yesterday,
We saw families by the side of the road to Pance, with nothing,

Stopping here or headed farther south. Men with cardboard signs
At the intersections, asking for pesos. But, none of this brings me
Closer to you. At night in our room, we touch each other, carefully,

And then with hunger, fingers and mouths unrestrained, thighs open,
Looking for what? I’ve never figured this out. The room smells
Vaguely of cigarettes, but we’re showered, our skin damp and cool.

Your father is probably dozing. There is not much left you can say
To him now. The water you give him is a kind of sacrament,
A way of preparing for a time when preparation doesn’t matter,

Preparing you for continuing. When you leave, he will cease to
Exist, and you will also in the way you existed before.
His wrists and hands are transparent. He reaches for the cup you

Can’t give him. You remind him, one spoon, then another.
He gags, coughs, swallows the fluids that fill his throat, takes
A shallow breath, asks for more water. Tomorrow, we will fly back

To Miami. The residents of the home will be eating dinner, watching
Television, voices, music in the background, unaffected by the heat,
The mosquitoes that come around in the evening. Your father will

Lie in bed, waiting for sleep to cover him, his mouth dry. On the plane,
I’ll touch your hand, then bring it to my lips. Forgive me, mi amor, for
Knowing so little, for not even knowing what it is I want to know.

Knossos

The turning passages wrap round themselves,
Intestines of adolescent girls and boys,
Skulls broken, arms twisted askew or off.
All the time, Theseus dreams of a bronze sword
Cutting the fetid air, a spool of white
Thread that unwinds as he walks, the breathing of
A creature that didn’t ask for birth or death,
That never wanted to be part of a story.
The labyrinth does not contain Theseus or
The beast he’ll kill. The labyrinth coils tight
Inside them both. It’s growing late, though who
Could tell that in the skyless dark? The Minotaur
Feels sleepy, flesh-drunk. The horns on his head
Bend toward the ground. Theseus will not come
Tonight. He is still a dream, another passage,
One that turns when it appears to go straight, that ends
At a blank wall where bull and man collide,
Look up, and recognize each other, familiar
As the face in the bathroom mirror, the screen
Of the television when it darkens, or the glass
Frame on the photograph above your desk.
If the Minotaur cries out, the cry is sharp-
Pitched and sudden. Tomorrow, the philosophers
Will gather near the marketplace. Presidents
And cabinet ministers will settle their differences
Over chilled wine and platters of shrimp curled
Like small fingers. Tank commanders will give
The order to fire. Tomorrow, the philosophers
Will teach the principles of government:
How much grain should be distributed, what day
Of the month unemployment checks should go out,
Whether prostitutes should pay taxes.
In the labyrinth, the Minotaur is either asleep
Or dead. It’s too dark to see which. Theseus
Is on a ship headed back to Athens, his black
Sail engorged with wind, his thread abandoned,
Trailing like a vein or artery toward
A dry, broken heart at the earth’s center.
Far away, Daedalus stands on a hilltop, weeping.
Far away, Icarus crashes into the sea.

A Friend Writes
     For Maria Gogni & Alejandro M. Drewes

A friend writes it’s raining in Buenos Aires.
Sky and street are the same color. Windows
Are blurred, fogged at the edges, and the soft
Figures of children in yellow raincoats float
Leaf-like along the pavement. No one
Sits outside in the cafés. Even the mannequins
In evening gowns and high heels frown
As water pools outside the thick glass
That separates them from the sidewalk and
Traffic. If it rained for forty days, what
Would you save on your ark? What books would
You take with you? What paintings would you
Keep dry? Would you arrange memories of
Your city with their spines neatly shelved in
Alphabetical order? Would you remember
Monuments in the cemetery, a bar where you
And Alejandro ordered carafes of young
Wine, where the waiters always smiled at you
Then returned to cigarettes, arguments over
Football? And the poems, which would you
Rescue: Pizarnik, Paz, Rilke, Borges, Paul Celan?
Which would you read aloud as waves slap
Against the wooden hull and rain splatters on the
Deck above your head? From a window on
The top floor of the library, someone is
Looking down at the cars and water, buses and
Trucks, at the brown wake splashing behind them.
Streetlamps glow in pale afternoon light.
“Agua” was originally published in The Wild Word.
“Knossos” was originally published in Sheila-Na-Gig Online.
“A Friend Writes” was originally published in Nagari.
©2020 George Franklin
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