muskrat notebook

Victor Rodriguez Núñez (Cuba)
translated by Katherine M. Hedeen

4

between two hummingbirds
oscillating in the breeze
beneath the tame sunflower light
nightburned
in the intense split
of the pitcher we left outside
shyness perfumes
with basil cunning
the horizon will fail
but the light undresses in the maples
a hummingbird is allayed
on the steel curve
behind its stirring the sun sets
restores the line
the stroke kandinsky couldn’t complete
the other hummingbird at last vanishes
with its clear tremble
a cross in charcoal unsound sanity
an atonal foreshortening
being flaps its wings

6

the shadow paving the way for the goose
coded by hunger
leading it toward the vertex
a water without parapet
discarded shamrocks
the light turning its back on the goose
in the dawn inside out
and at last soothed
with a quartz egg
glance in whirlwind
from the not staying
sunflowers grew
and they won’t be allayed in the penumbra
the old rocking chair honks likes the geese
the neighbor tries to oust
the cicada plucks unconsolably
in the decrested rigging
inspiration spins with the twilight
and doesn’t rise
out fear of the wings

7

you’re guided by the prints
of an ambercolored rabbit
certainty fears
lacks self–confidence
not here or on another moon its station
its watery den
and doubt is impulse
sure of itself
like an endemic species
it doesn’t end with entering or leaving
reason’s angel
intrepid dread
shining the scar
that wind gave the shadow
festered the way toward the snow
in the wakefulness rises
the apple falling from nothing
doesn’t hide its secret
life is numeral
a nighttime rabbit