Having is illusory, my dear. Whatever we have is determined by others. Because of this, I offer a dream. I’ll be what you want me to be: man or woman

One of my dearest friends shared this poem with me. She said it reminded her of me, of us. Ah, I could read it over and over and be filled with this energy, excitement, a sense of purpose and understanding. I love how every world is connected. I can see Robin in Nightwood roaming the street late night, and I catching a glimpse of her steps behind as I too walk the streets, and the same night Djuna has locked herself in her house and Anais is dancing drenched in music in Harlem. Temporal drag, isn't it a wonder, and a bitch! And how I love the ones, the few, that are here with me now. Thank you.


Saturday Night

In the solitary dawn
through drifting secondhand smoke
and sidewalks sticky with spit
I go out walking
to escape the nocturnal silence of my own room
seeking bright lights
oh, those neon friends who always ward off
my internal wolves
my hungry demons
(my Vallejo ancestors).
I go in search of something
losing myself in the narrow streets round the harbor
looking for company,
oh, the sweet drugs that since Baudelaire
have run along the gutters of cities at nighttime
--London, Paris, New York, Madrid—
oh, the unknown flesh that stirs, aroused by a look.
Finally I find it: some sleazy joint that’s still open
a prison cell of solitary pleasures
a peep show hidden between the trees:
a bookstore open all night
where I can wallow among the books
luxuriate in other people’s verses
and finally reach orgasm
with one of Allen Ginsberg’s self-destructive poems.

--Cristina Peri Rossi
(translated by Tatiana de la Tierra)


A great interview with Rossi from BOMB Magazine (where this poem was featured) here.