Alberto Santamaría Fernández

Ode to Bonnie Parker
(Now that the Soda Water Tastes Like a Foot That's Fallen Asleep)

(versión en español)

Neither doors nor windows.
Bonnie Parker with her tac-tac of slow eyes,
claims to know by heart the melodies of all the parks,
to know the smell of all basements by the sound they make.

Tac-tac
is the sound of her accent
stretching itself in bed like a sip:
is her dressed up as Captain Hook in order to know if the heart is a tricycle.

Tac-tac
and the night fills with empty hours,
and Bonnie Parker doesn’t know of angels,
and an unmade bed is filled with basements
and tac-tac
and tac-tac
and tac-tac.

Neither doors nor windows.
Bonnie Parker tastes like a foot that’s fallen asleep,
now that it’s winter in all the statues,
and the children on the sidewalks play at being summer.
Bonnie sees the rain,
Bonnie is the rain,
and Clyde Barrow kisses her,
and a child says that he is August,
and Bonnie steps on the footprints of streetlamps, exact as the rain,
and Bonnie walks
and passes through the sirens of the parks,
and tac-tac
and tac-tac
and tac-tac.

As dawn breaks, the bedrooms fill with honey,
taxis,
winters,
and each word
is an invention so that you are not left alone, my love.

Translated by William Glenn and Alexandra van de Kamp