Got your message, here
in the letter you didn't write:
burned, with a forbidden seal,
marking the burial site
of what has neither voice nor definition,
what has no face, no peace, no place to sleep,
a whisper in which I can't [inaudible]
-what the sea doesn't say, whispering, every night,
and when the rain comes to erase the streets
tomorrow, & all the dusks that follow that,
and runs around making up street dances
from what you once said, I'll have this map,
without details, made of what I've missed,
telling me that that which isn't is.

Spanish:

Soneto Balbuciendo En Que La Poeta Manda A Su Amor En Nueva York La Lluvia de La Habana

He leido el mensaje que mandaste,
aqui, en la carta no me has escrito:
quemada, y con sello prohibido,
diciendome donde enterraste
lo que no tiene voz ni luz ni cara,
ni paz, ni un lugar para dormir,
susurro donde yo puedo oir
cada noche lo que no dice el mar,
y cuando la lluvia borrara las calles
manana, y los crepusculos despues,
y correra haciendo bailes
de lo que me dijiste una vez,
yo tendre este mapa, sin detalles,
que me dice que lo que no es, es.


About this poem
-Suzanne Gardinier


About Suzanne Gardinier
Suzanne Gardinier is the author of "Iridium & Selected Poems 1986-2009" (Sheep Meadow Press, 2011). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between New York City and Havana.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience.

(c) 2015 Suzanne Gardinier. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate