Poemas de Javier Zamora (El Salvador - EEUU)

Javier Zamora 

Nació en La Herradura, El Salvador en 1990. Su padre huyó de El Salvador cuando tenía un año; y su madre cuando estaba a punto de cumplir cinco años. Las migraciones de ambos padres fueron causadas por la Guerra Civil salvadoreña financiada por los Estados Unidos (1980-1992).
En 1999, Javier emigró a través de Guatemala, México y, finalmente, el desierto de Sonora. Antes de que un coyote abandonara su grupo en Oaxaca, Javier logró llegar a Arizona con la ayuda de otros inmigrantes. Su primera colección completa, Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, septiembre de 2017), explora cómo la inmigración y la guerra civil han impactado a su familia.
Zamora es becario Wallace Stegner 2016-2018 de la Universidad de Stanford y posee becas de CantoMundo, la Universidad de Colgate (Olive B. O'Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, la Fundación Nacional de las Artes, la Fundación de Poesía (Ruth Lilly) y Yaddo. El ganador de una Beca Literaria Lannan 2017, el Premio Narrativo 2017 y el Premio Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers 2016 por su trabajo en la Campaña Undocupoets.
Javier vive en San Rafael, CA


there's so much room underneath an upturned boat

If we don’t know 7 times 7, the nuns
hit our fingers with meter-sticks. 49
answers Chimol, who dropped out
when Mother Superior beat him
for comparing La Odisea’s nymphs
to the town’s whore. It’s our tradition
to name men we’ve seen exit
La Salivosa’s door. Today, Chimol
tests us on anatomy, this pier can’t cool
our bodies at 3 pm. He asks ¿what’s
a pupusa? Our national dish we say.
¿What’s a pupusa? You know, dough
filled with cheese. He’s older,
wiser, his laughter fills the boat.
Caracól means she’s four years
younger than Chimol. ¿Should we
ask her to join us? She has a pupusa,
I’ll show you, he says. She wears
shells in her hair, sweat beneath
her breasts. Caracól we say.
There’s something nervous
inside us, except Chimol,
he’s not stuttering. Her eyes
sit still, wondering if it’s colder
inside. There’s so much room
Chimol says. Enter.
He begins. Her shells rattle.
The rattle, rattling.

Then, It Was So

           after my father

To tell my wife I was leaving
I waited and waited,
rethinking first sentences in my sleep,
I didn’t sleep,
and my heart was a watermelon
split each night. Outside,
3:00 a.m. was the same as bats
and my wife was a kerosene lamp.

El Salvador

Salvador, if I return on a summer day, so humid my thumb

will clean your beard of  salt, and if  I touch your volcanic face,

kiss your pumice breath, please don’t let cops say: he’s gangster.

Don’t let gangsters say: he’s wrong barrio. Your barrios

stain you with pollen, red liquid pollen. Every day cops

and gangsters pick at you with their metallic beaks,

and presidents, guilty. Dad swears he’ll never return,

Mom wants to see her mom, and in the news:

every day black bags, more and more of us leave. Parents say:

don’t go; you have tattoos. It’s the law; you don’t know

what law means there. ¿But what do they know? We don’t

have greencards. Grandparents say: nothing happens here.

Cousin says: here, it’s worse. Don’t come, you could be    ...    

Stupid Salvador, you see our black bags,

our empty homes, our fear to say: the war has never stopped,

and still you lie and say: I’m fine, I’m fine,

but if  I don’t brush Abuelita’s hair, wash her pots and pans,

I cry. Like tonight, when I wish you made it

easier to love you, Salvador. Make it easier

to never have to risk our lives.


 

Looking at a Coyote

among thirty dusty men the only wet thing

the mouth of the coyote

is a mini zoo we are from many countries

in which there are many coyotes

500 bucks and we’re off think about it

is the shortest verse of a corrido

a gila monster and a coyote are one

a gila monster and a coyote and a gringo are one

strewn bottles melt dirt

the coyote’s tongue fills them

we don’t know which to swat the coyote or the froth

the mosquitoes or the flies

gringos why do you see us illegal don’t you think

we are the workers around you

 

 we speak different accents yours included and we know

también the coyote is suspect of what we say

when the coyote hears helicopters

in Nike shoes he trots Arizona

Nogales whores close their doors

the coyote trots Arizona in Nike shoes

the desert is still the coyote must be tired

in his shadow he sees searchlights

it’s day all night it’s dusting and it’s going to dust

the coyote rests under yuccas

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pier of La Herradura

When I sleep I see a child

hidden between the legs of a scarred man,

their sunburnt backs breathe cold air,

the child faces me

and the pier’s roof swallows the moon

cut by the clouds behind them.

Sometimes, they’re on the same roof

wearing handkerchiefs

and uniformed men surround them.

I mistake bullet casings

for cormorant beaks diving

till water churns the color of sunsets,

 

 

stained barnacles line the pier

and I can’t see who’s facedown

on boats lulled by crimson ripples.

Once, I heard the man —

alive and still on the roof — say

today for you, tomorrow for me.

There’s a village where men train cormorants

to fish: rope-end tied to sterns,

another to necks, so their beaks

won’t swallow the fish they catch.

My father is one of those birds.

He’s the scarred man.