Rocío Cerón: '13 Ways to Inhabit a Corner'

Translated from Spanish by Anna Rosen Guercio

I
Ostriches in flight —there are women whose words are ash trees. Shadows
stitch together harbors of air. In the midst of the stampede, a hand rests on the
arc of a kneecap. Cigar and smoke. Rosy cypress sleep. The scent reaches far
beyond the border. From the bureau — power, smile destroyed/ ocher
temptation, strophic enjambed body. Vestibule.

 II
See where the castaways sing. From the southern corner of the eye —water of
memory— the leaden tone of cold. One could be dusky cognizance, furious
advance party of the human hounds, but the vortex holds back rebellion. Even
the sweater drips. And between the winter of
onethousandninehundredseventytwo and the predictions for
twothousandtwelveendofthetheworld one day and the next. Grammar of
Babylonia. Descent.

III
Candy and one ant. Brief asthma attack. Legs run silky over a little finger. This
landscape is not political: hollow, center of bullet or poem. Two walls make a
wasteland in between. Mint, the candy is mint-flavored. Footprint.

IV
On both sides of the road —unstable eyelids, 2mg of lozam— the surface of
things: steel piping, mosaics (opus tessellatum), synthetic fabric in an abstract
style. Pained language. Chromatic monopoly. All nude body kills theory. Rotate
space. Sky.

V
A point a particular point a point a point evading its own point a point that
reveals another point the point that annihilates its shadow a point the point
right on point:
limit.

 VI
Rain on penumbra. Fur and gaunt. Daydream and notes in outbreak of
murmurs. Sustaining wound. At the stroke of a swift sound —sky open over
body, tongue— particles of prussian blue. Slippage at the edge of the mouth.
Plexus.

VII
Flying into the eye, black petrel. Walking along a clearly delimited cliff. Hills,
clouds, boreal forest. Woman undressing on a frozen bed. Beneath the folds of
her clothing a constellation of sleet. Hamstrings burn. Barbera or Bonarda, a
strong taste in the mouth. Edge.

 VIII
In the sessile body of a leaf, scarcely attached, the stratum of the world shines.
An audible flow. Inflections sustained by insinuation —an amazonian canopy
in the middle of the room. Ants always infer the state of things. The intensity of
one figure inside another, the lightbulb’s whine, the tone deaf whistling. The
beer falls to the floor. Tokonoma.

 IX
Ash wood chest, natural and geometric motifs in perfect symmetry. Adjustable
legs for lifting it off the floor, lock and key, handles on the sides for easy
transport. Period: Eighteenth century. No one will forget the color of the
bracelet. The large-scale economy destroys will. A man announces his
disappearance. Trill.

 X
Bony angles, shapes and slope from which the ritual stems. Who fears the air.
Fissure where it is. Polished door. Still lifes, tobacco smoke. Crossing. A poem
is a metal file a leap day a March 31st a mindset a pine forest. Air, saturated
lungs. Oxygen to supply the body. Furs pulled close against the wind. Cage.

 XI
A point, black umbrella, pen with blue ink, directions not to think about death,
a dry blood stain, cadmium scrawl on cotton, arc with systematically repeating
motifs —mountain carnation or marsh marigold. All the potential of looking:
festering wound man’s nuptial back arousing thickness of lower lip rope of ash
wood drifts back and forth mother of pearl fire opal daylight on the scene
movement and traces.

 XII
Jubilation and adoration in parentheses. Above the long hair of that woman,
seen in Baden-Baden, a galaxy hangs. No satellite rings. No saintly crown.
Aftershock. Pealing bells (no ecclesiastical province) whisper a half-truth. White
and cracked. The lips. We need a new password to get back to the world in
time. While the word appears, she draws a spiral in the water. Resplendence.

 XIII
Cars circulate in an inch and a half. Split space. A dog barks in the distance.
Tinsel. Blueberry muffin and chocolate chips. Synthetic happiness pill. It
wasn’t just the swinging of cumbia salsa samba. Hinge between realities, "look
at your iridescent body, iridescent bluegreenpurple.” Language. Territory for
the emergence of parks cityscapes rehabilitated hillsides of houses with metal
roofs nucleic stones sacrificial spaces. Boxes and wrapping, vital space inch
and a half. Nation.

 [NOTE. Born in Mexico City in 1972, Rocío Cerón is a multi-faceted poet & performance/video artist whose work cuts easily across several genres. Of the larger work, Diorama, from which the preceding sequence was excerpted, she writes: “Questioning. Above all else. Understanding the world's simulations. Its woven texture. A diorama is a fragment, a vision that condense, cuts, segments, halts. This book emerges from the collector's path. Travel poem. Poem interchangeable where powers are interconnected: verses that do not die, but are transformed. Diorama is also sound, knot and jumble, convergence of syllables. Diorama is breath. Air unfolding itself over the landscape, scenery, linguistic taxidermy. This. Poetics inscribed on the border of recounting and delirium. Collection and phrasing. Driven by desire. Questioning in its purest form.” A bilingual edition of Diorama is being published later this year by Brutas Editoras, Chile, in conjunction with McNally Jackson in New York.]