Behold your back

Omar Alberto Santos Balán is a Mexican poet and short story writer based in Campeche. Awards he has received for his work include the “Ignacio Manuel Altamirano” National Prize in December 2006, the Bonaventuriano Poetry and Short Story Prize in Colombia in 2008, and the Edmundo Valadés Latin American Short Story Prize in 2008. He has published 3 collections of his poetry, and his work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. For more information and to see more of his work (in the original Spanish), visit the website “Poetas del Mundo“.

Behold your back, carnal landscape
terrain of tenderness, expanse
of my breathlessness
Sublime shortcut to the end
of throwbacks and fractures.
Behold your back, an irresistible stretch,
like a young dove that reclines
upon language to sustain
the nights of the Tribe, to invoke
“the Alpha and the Omega” of a world
that sleeps on its scar.
Adorable back, warm garden of my infancy,
you stretch out like the soft fruit
of drowsy dazes, like an unforgettable angel
that binds me between the siege
and the occupation.

Translated by Martin Boyd