irene
by marielos olivo / translation by willy palomo

Lesbian lesbian

I have never named myself

although the memory of

those kisses

spidered me

40 years later

We shared a month

I

drunk off

surviving

the war

                                    the soldiers

                                                our comrades

she

a traveling believer

of revolutions

                                    of blind zeal

of hope

A month

tasting of sea

of orgasms and confessions

                                    on the floor

                                    in the hammock

                                    in the garden

it was like returning to my mother’s uterus

and seeing myself born in the breasts of that woman

all at the same time

Another woman I never took

I did not desire a sun

withering away her memory

                                                                                    (That’s what men are for HEHE)

*This poem first appeared in the collection Tres Tercas Trincheras published by Edizioni FormArti in a trilingual Spanish-Italian-English edition.