Translations by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario
Hace frio aunque estamos en pleno mayo
transitamos la cuidad
amplios rascacielos se tocan en el cielo
gris el cielo
y nosotras con bufandas y con asma
Vamos de congreso en congreso
de charla en charla
apalabrando
Tu hija hace tiempo que se fue a vivir con su papá
buscas libre otra maternidad en las palabras.
Yo otra vez
Cargo con mi rebaño,
Negra inmigrante de momentos
Que se topa con el cielo gris, los rascacielos.
Pero mi trabajo no es pasar los mapos
ni barrer las calles
Mi/nuestro trabajo es parir palabras
Esas que apalabren esto
que no nos deja respirar.
New York
It's cold even though it’s mid-May
we travel the city
wide skyscrapers touch each other in the sky
grey the sky
and us wrapped in scarves and asthma
We go from lecture to lecture
from talk to talk
wordsmithing
Your daughter has long since gone to live with her father
You search freely for another motherhood in words.
Once again, I
carry my flock,
a Black immigrant from time to time
who happens upon the grey sky, the skyscrapers.
But it’s not my job to push a mop
or sweep the streets
My/our job is to birth words
That give voice to that thing
that will not let us breathe.
Contributor Notes
Mayra Santos-Febres is an award-winning novelist and poet. She is professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She obtained, among other awards, the Letras de Oro and the Juan Rulfo, both in the short story genre. She is the recipient of a John S. Simon Guggenheim scholarship (2017) and the Rockefeller Bellagio Center Residency in 2018. She is the author of the poetry books Anamú y manigua (1990), The escaped order (1991), Boat People (1994), Tercer Mundo Lecciones de resignation (2014-20), Huracanada (2018). She also published the novels Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2001), Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002), Fe en disfraz, Nuestra Señora de la noche and La amante de Gardel and the collections of essays entitled Tratado de Medicina Natural para Hombres Melancólicos and Sobre piel y papel.
Vanessa Pérez-Rosario is a translator and professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York where she teaches U.S. Latinx and Caribbean literatures and cultures. Her translations have appeared in The Nation and sx salon. She translated Boat People by Mayra Santos Febres (Cardboard House Press 2021). She is the author of Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon (University of Illinois Press 2014) which will be published in a Spanish edition, Julia de Burgos: la creación de un ícono puertorriqueño (University of Illinois Press 2021). She is currently editing a bilingual anthology of Julia de Burgos’ collected writings. She is editor of Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (Palgrave 2010), and managing editor of Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism.
