The Ring by Camila Charry Noriega, translated by Olivia Lott


 
 
They rolled down the mountain
and were a lone river
leaving behind
their parents’ battered flesh.

Like the river they were a lone wound
roaming through cities
until the age of ash.

They were a river flowering like a long dagger.

They’d carry in their hands
adored
honed bones
arms or amulets
carved by the sparkle of their teeth
in case shadow came back to find them
now toughened
orphans.
 
 
Camila Charry Noriega was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1979. She currently works as a writer, literary critic, and literature teacher. Among her books of poetry are Detrás de la bruma (2012), El día de hoy (2013), Otros ojos (2014), and El sol y la carne (2015). She has been invited to read her work at a wide-range of poetry events in Europe and the Americas and some of her poems have been translated into English, French, Romanian, and Polish.

Olivia Lott is a doctoral student in Hispanic Languages & Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis, specializing in contemporary Spanish American poetry and literary translation. She is the recipient of a 2015-16 Fulbright grant to translate new poetry from Colombia. Her translations of Colombian poetry have appeared in literary journals in and beyond the United States, including Mantis, Sakura Review, Círculo de poesía, La raíz invertida, and Otro páramo.