Marisa Estelrich

Marisa Estelrich

Marisa Estelrich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she completed her B.A. in English as a Second Language. She moved to Winston Salem, North Carolina in 1997, and completed her postgraduate studies at Wake Forest University (Master of Arts in Liberal Studies. 2000), and at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (Master of Arts in Romance Languages and Literature with a Concentration in Spanish. 2005).

Her academic articles, newspaper articles, literary translations and short stories have been published in the United States, Spain and Argentina. Her short stories have won several awards in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her first novella Cuando yo te vuelva a ver won an award at the Cristóbal Zaragoza V Short Novel Contest in Villajoyosa, Spain, and was published in April 2009. Her translation of Martín Espada’s Imagine the Angels of Bread was included in La tumba de Buenaventura Roig. Selected Poems (Terranova Editores: Puerto Rico, 2008). Her 1st Prize winning anthology Desnudos del alma (Nuevo Ser Press. Buenos Aires, 2004) and its English translation by Dr. Graciela Lucero Hammer has been published in bilingual edition as Desnudos del alma / Naked Souls (Press 53, Winston Salem 2009).

At present she works as a free-lance writer, editor, literary translator and Creative Writing Workshop Moderator.

For more work by Marisa Estelrich, pleaase see: When I See You Again – Una nouvelle de Marisa Zulema Estelrich.

 
Mediterranean Lovers

Trembling in their stealth
like feathers
ruffling from a seagull’s wings
one by one, the stars hang an oyster pearl
from the salty chandelier
dripping its spheres upon your manly chest.

Your breath sighs in myriad ripples
your voice
whispers green and blue hisses
while I shudder
and you wince at the echoes
honed by blades of ancestral rivalries
heaving in my womb,
giving birth to the specters of Jews, of Moors and Christians
blandishing skirmishes
in their futile illusion
to conquer that which cannot be conquered
to blemish your waters
and disfigure my waist
as if so.

Meanwhile, you and I,
lovers of lovers,
you and I,
who have outlived them all
dote on the offspring of our eternal encounter.

Ours, the boulders and the rocks
ours, the melody of the sirens
our s, the lovers’ madness,
their bliss
ours
the sailing ships
ours the tears of the parting friends,
ours,
the worshippers of dreams.

Yours
my precious offerings
to cloak and to uncloak with kisses.
Yours
the vastness of my body
to empty, to replenish with shoals of fish:
silver fish, copper fish and fish of gold.

Only you, my Mediterranean Lover,
only I, your Mistress, your ever faithful shore
can outlive those specters and their folly
can embellish the question with no answer:
desire
the force behind it all.

 
Poetry in this post: © Marisa Estelrich
Published with the permission of Marisa Estelrich