Jamie Berrout is a Mexican trans woman writer, translator, and editor at the Trans Women Writers Collective. Her first novel is Otros valles (2014). Her books are available to trans women at no cost through her blog desdeotromar.tumblr.com.
More of Jamie Berrout’s translations of Esdras Parra, To be human once more, are available for free on Gumroad.
Si la tierra existe
If the earth exists
it is to establish
the distance of the stars
it becomes necessary to move adversely
against the undertow
this future doesn’t respond to your call
it is an unsettling whisper
an emptiness attached to the wall
I hold the tree to its thoughts
this land that ignites with the rocks
this land you could not foresee
I search for other trampled wounds
I concede to the wind a body without memory.
No me quedo aquí
I’m not staying here
I don’t exist there in the crowd
I am the threshold
this threshold detains me
the only one among us that nods
among the rocks
this condescending country
in the country where applause does not exist
neither does the dawn rebuke us
nor cross its arms
I see the sky bowed before the horseshoe
it is a lost dream
a nightfall pressed against my forehead.
Suprimir el verano
To erase the summer
to place the future into question
here’s the way that wind is tied to stone
I lift these ruins with the tips of my fingers
I silence the sea
defy the mystery of the water
I open furrows in the clearness
I place the forests in a straight line
to the heat that surrounds my fist I give
the same thought as that of twilight.
Nunca estar solo en el interior de la ceniza
To never be alone in the heart of the ashes
in the day that opens onto our path
upon the earth we lack the skill
it’s essential to move forward as we disappear
like the hummingbird, the grass doesn’t envy
nor meditate
we only just sowed the summer in the earth’s rind
with the impatience of the forests
trees that don’t know how to walk
with a night that drags on
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