Ximena Gómez & George Franklin

Ximena Gómez is the author of Habitación con Moscas, published by Torremozas in Madrid (2016). She was born in Bogotá, Colombia, attended Universidad del Valle, and worked as a psychologist before she sought political asylum in the United States in 2000. She now lives in Miami, Florida, where she works as a translator for other refugees seeking asylum. Her poetry has been published in Nagari, Revista Conexos, Lord Byron Ediciones, Círculo de Poesía, and in the current issue of Carátula and her translations of English poems into Spanish have appeared in Nagari, Revista Alastor, and Revista Conexos.  Previous translations into English of Ms. Gomez’s poems have been published in Cagibi.

Her co-translator, George Franklin, practices law in Miami and teaches writing workshops in Florida state prisons. His poems have been most recently published in Sheila-Na-Gig online, Salamander, The Wild Word, B O D Y, Matter, Scalawag, Gulf Stream, The Ghazal Page, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Vending Machine Press, Rascal, and Twyckenham Notes. Additional poems are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review and in The Amsterdam Quarterly.

lo que quedó de la cena

Pedazos y migajas
De queso azul
Y de queso de cabra
Una porción
De pollo sin tajar
Los residuos de avena
De la barra de pan
Cortado a medias
Los tomates cereza
En el tazón de vidrio
Las naranjas dulcísimas, rojizas
Restos
De pollo, gotas
Del aceite de oliva y vinagreta
Caídos en los pliegues del mantel
El vino tinto,
Rescoldo en copas
Las tacitas,
Sedimentos de café,

Y dos pares de manos
Al borde de la mesa
Que se rozan
Apenas.
Y dos pares de ojos
Que se dicen
Lo que las manos
No se atreven.

left over from dinner

Pieces and crumbs
Of blue cheese,
Goat cheese,
A portion
Of chicken, unsliced,
The remains of oats
Fallen from a half-cut
Loaf of bread,
Cherry tomatoes in
A glass bowl,
The sweetest oranges, almost red,
Scraps
Of chicken, drops
Of olive oil and vinaigrette
Splattered on creases of the tablecloth,
Red wine
Like embers in the glass,
Little cups,
Dregs of coffee.

Two pairs of hands
By the table’s edge,
Brushing against each other,
Two pairs of eyes
Risking
What the hands can’t say.

With thanks to Tim Mollett at Ohio University Southern for evaluating the Spanish/English translation. Friends of Sheila-Na-Gig online, please note that I am not regularly accepting translations at this time.