Summertime fruits

A Page in Your Name

Your name can be bitten like an apple.
It smells like Manila mango and mandarin orange.
It leaves my tongue purple like chagalapolin
and the escobilla.
I crush it and breathe mint.
As I separate it a pomegranate explodes.
It grows to the height of a sugarcane flower, it's the vine
that climbs the fence or reaches to the edge of the patio,
persecutor of coral snakes, watermelons, and verdolagas.
If I shake it, I hear the water that fills it.
If I give it to the mad man of the house, he will return to the top
of the hill and make it a flute.
To free me from darkness I keep it in a jar.
With the light it makes it illuminates this page.


- Francisco Hernández
Trad. par Marlon L. Fick
Prairie Schooner
Volume 76, Number 2, Summer 2002

- Autres infos : prix Valarde 2008