Dubitation (a selection)
Martín Gambarotta
Translated by Alexis Almeida
Here, the water is different, the artichoke
leaves are different, everything is
in essence, different,
but he who takes the bottle from the refrigerator
and puts it on the table is
basically the same
*
You who choose
confrontation, you who choose
confrontation, you
who choose confrontation.
You who choose reverberation, you
who choose reverberation, you who
choose reverberation.
You who choose dubitation, you
who choose dubitation, you who choose
dubitation.
You who choose anomaly, you
who choose anomaly, you who choose
anomaly.
You who measure your actions
milimetrically, you who measure
your actions milimetrically, you
who measure you actions milimetrically.
*
Fifteen months, three of those months
to decode the rest of the months
your months, which is to say north of those
months there was nothing.
*
You who are able to materialize, you
who are able to materialize. You who are able
to materialize.
*
You who don’t understand the benefit
of having spent long hours, entire days
with binoculars watching birds and
recording their names in a notebook.
*
To know the species
of the bird well
before naming it
is the only honest
way to name
it
so when he saw
what seemed to be
four wild
parrots in a low
flight between the thin
palms in the plaza
in unison: four green
fighter-bombers
in miniature
zig-zagging
as if to write Tel Aviv
together in the air
I couldn’t
digest well
the experience
*
The fugitive chess player in an amusement park.
The trichotomy that distorts sight.
*
It’s not the moment for putting the artichoke
on an immaculate metal table
and it’s not the moment for digressions
about why he didn’t put the artichoke
on the table; it’s not the retractable moment
the regressing moment for everything, the moment
to assign a color to every month
the moment of the flaming black rag
over his head.
*
If you want
your house to be
Babylon
without a visa
you can’t
sing
if you don’t want
to sit in a
plastic chair
if you sing
they won’t give you a
visa.
*
He’s not here
he went to buy
unleavened bread
he’s not here
he went to bathe
in the river
he’s not here
he went to rotate
in the void
he’s not here
he went from the cold
into the cold
Image: Delfina Estrada, “Battlefield”
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