I
Trailer of past lives
The unconscious is a madhouse
with an ocean view
Each fish that leaps from the water
carries a straitjacket
1
I saw a blank page
wandering through fields
of unreality
It looked like a ballerina
ready to give birth
2
I saw Pizarnik emerge
from a shallow pane of water
Huidobro carried her in his arms
It was night
Death slept naked
on God’s corpse
3
I saw Death parachute
over a field of ashes
It was mid afternoon
The crows yawned inward
and Vincent painted his ear
with the blood of Christ
4
I saw God dig a grave in the void
His hands were shaking
It was February
Death wrote its epitaph
on a four-leaf clover
5
I saw the Pope waking
from a horrible nightmare
God had told him
he read Rimbaud
It was a new year
The Pope slept hugging
his plush Christ
6
I saw Death dragging
Neruda’s coffin
The coffin was vacant
but weighed an eternity
It was November
The worms gargled
God’s ashes
7
I saw God kissing Death
in a cafe in Paris
He wore a beard of centuries
and carried an umbrella
to keep loneliness at bay
It was summer
His shadow fanned itself
with van Gogh's ear
I
Tráiler de vidas pasadas
El inconsciente es un manicomio
con vista al mar
Cada pez que sale del agua
trae camisa de fuerza
1
Vi una página en blanco
vagando por los campos
de la irrealidad
Parecía una bailarina
a punto de dar a luz
2
Vi a Pizarnik salir
de un espejo de agua
Huidobro la llevaba en brazos
Era de noche
La muerte dormía desnuda
sobre el cadáver de Dios
3
Vi a la muerte arrojarse en paracaídas
sobre un campo de cenizas
Era media tarde
Los cuervos bostezaban hacia adentro
y Vincent pintaba su oreja
con la sangre de Cristo
4
Vi a Dios cavar una fosa en el vacío
Le temblaban las manos
Era febrero
La muerte escribía su epitafio
sobre un trébol de cuatro hojas
5
Vi al Papa despertando
de una horrible pesadilla
Dios le había contado
que leía a Rimbaud
Era año nuevo
El Papa dormía abrazado
a su Cristo de peluche
6
Vi a la muerte arrastrando
el ataúd de Neruda
El ataúd estaba vacío
pero pesaba una eternidad
Era noviembre
Los gusanos hacían gárgaras
con las cenizas de Dios
7
Vi a Dios besando a la muerte
en un café de París
Llevaba una barba de siglos
y un paraguas
para espantar la soledad
Era verano
Su sombra se echaba viento
con la oreja de van Gogh
Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. Her debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, she is the author of three chapbooks and founder/editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published in New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others. Eloisa lives in Columbus, OH and is the founder of Costura Creative.
John Allen Taylor’s first chapbook, Unmonstrous, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in spring 2019. His poems are published in DIAGRAM, Nashville Review, The Common, Pleiades, and other places. He serves as Ploughshares’s senior poetry reader, coordinates the writing center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and co-directs the Adroit Summer Mentorship Program.