The book fell off the bed and I
am not sure I’ll ever pick it up
like the way I leave the empty
glass on the rug to see a circle
that my friends call messy but holds
the beginning of a pattern. I think
of falling and staying like that
for a while to mark what I look like
in retrospect, what I look like removed.
That’s a way of focusing on the degrees
that separate absence from presence—degrees
that show how far away from home
home became. You can’t always trust
winter will be cold, and there is no place
on that rug that I can stay long
enough to keep it the same.
Laura Cesarco Eglin is a poet and translator from Uruguay. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Llamar al agua por su hombre (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Sastrería (Yaugurú, 2011), and a chapbook of poems, Tailor Shop: Threads (Finishing Line Press, 2013), co-translated into English with Teresa Williams. Cesarco Eglin’s work has been published in a variety of journals, including Modern Poetry in Translation, Puerto del Sol, MiPOesias, Pilgrimage Magazine, The Acentos Review, Bourbon Penn, Turbulence Magazine, Periódico de Poesía, and Metrópolis. Cesarco Eglin’s poems are also featured in the Uruguayan women’s section of Palabras Errantes, Plusamérica. Her poetry and translations have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
