Néstor E. Rodríguez (La Romana, Dominican Republic, 1971) is a poet and literary scholar based in Toronto. He has published five collections of poems, Animal pedestre (Terranova, San Juan, 2004), El desasido (El billar de Lucrecia, Ciudad de México, 2009), Limo (Organograma, Rio de Janeiro, 2018), Poesía reunida (Zemí, Santo Domingo, 2018), and Ojo de agua: Obra poética 2001-2021 (ICE, Toronto, 2021). His poems have been translated into English, Italian, and Portuguese. As a scholar, he has written widely on Dominican, Cuban and Puerto Rican cultural production and is the author of several books of critical essays.
Return
To return as the other,
as one who comes back.
To walk about hidden,
as one who spies on us.
The return is a frenzy encoded
against impossible letters,
the patina of hours and memories
if I say loneliness so as to search for you,
an attempt, then, to grab with my teeth.
Oblivion, on the other hand,
is a marked piece
that fixes in time its underside.
With it you negotiate the tenuous truce
of the rooms,
the bare minimum of sanity is now lost
after witnessing how the daily contact of things
opens up a tangled mess of brief steps, swarming.
Vuelta
Volver ajeno,
como quien regresa.
Andar oculto,
como quien nos mira.
El retorno es un furor cifrado
contra letras imposibles,
la pátina de horas y memorias
si digo soledad para buscarte,
un intento, pues, de mordedura.
El olvido, al contrario,
es una ficha marcada
que fija en el tiempo su envés.
Con ella se negocia la precaria tregua
de los cuartos,
perdida ya la mínima cordura
al presenciar que al contacto cotidiano de las cosas
una maraña de pasos breves avanza copiosa.
Goddess of Fury
The Tainos understood the circular
movement of the wind when a hurricane
would pass over as auspicious.
So they drew Guabancex,
goddess of fury,
with twirling arms.
Today Saturn glides through Scorpio
and the earth’s brilliance
guilds the spines of books.
May no one venture out,
no matter how sweetly they are nudged,
no matter how clearly they sense
the call of the night.
Diosa de la furia
Los taínos veían propicio
el movimiento circular del viento
al paso de un huracán.
Por eso dibujaban a Guabancex,
diosa de la furia,
con los brazos ondulantes.
Hoy Saturno planea sobre Escorpión
y el brillo de la Tierra
dora el lomo de los libros.
Que nadie se aventure al afuera
por más dulce que llegue la sospecha,
por rotundo que se advierta
el llamado nocturnal.
Vitilla
The bottle cap
bobs and weaves through its dominion of air,
it glides across the asphalt
of the city and each of its street corners.
What boosts that plastic fireball
when it hits the elation of children?
What travel fee is implied by the smack
of the broomstick against its pure comet nature?
Vitilla
La tapa del botellón
ondea en su dominio de aire,
planea sobre el asfalto
de la ciudad y todas sus esquinas.
¿Qué activa ese bólido de plástico
para dar con la euforia de los niños?
¿Qué pasaje supone el golpe de la escoba
contra su pura materialidad de cometa?
Solenodon
At times, its mouth would half open,
as if it had something to say.
It was the solenodon
that was sniffing with its long snout
the night’s aire before us.
Strange sight.
It hurriedly rummaged about in the moist earth
far from the shine of the torches.
At times it would pause in its labor
to extend its front paws
in an act of prayer.
Then it would return to its task
of digging in the earth.
I am still unsettled not knowing
what it searched for so energetically.
Solenodonte
Por momentos, su boca se entreabría,
como si tuviera algo que decir.
Era el solenodonte
el que husmeaba con su largo hocico
el aire de la noche frente a nosotros.
Extraña escena.
Escarbaba con prisa en el suelo húmedo
ajeno al resplandor de las antorchas.
A veces detenía la labor
para extender las patas delanteras
en actitud de orante.
Entonces regresaba a su tarea
de ahondar en la tierra.
Aún me desconcierta no saber
lo que busca con tanta viveza.