Diane Wakoski is a poet born in 1937 in Whittier, California. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, where she studied with Thom Gunn and Josephine Miles. Often associated with the poets of the Beat Generation, among her books stand out Argonaut Rose (1998), The Emerald City of Las Vegas (1995), Jason the Sailor (1993), and Medea the Sorceress (1991). In our country Bartleby Editores published the book Waiting for the King of Spain (2022). We present a selection of her poetic work with translations by Beth Miller.
*****
The Mechanic
Most men use
the eyes
as a metronome
to mark the beat
of a woman’s walk
how her hips cinch
against the fabric, much like figs
on the tree
just before bursting
their skins hollow out,
to measure how much
of her stride is spent in bed
at night,
the heavens’ pitcher
filling with the Milky Way
glitters each time
she moves her lips.
but, of course,
secrets
are not the obvious blows
in the song
that any drummer can play
listening to the speed of the motor
—made of blows as well—
so fast,
subtle, I suppose,
that they arrive as a continuous sound
or the heart that, of course,
beats without a fan
to keep it
cool;
it’s a test,
a rhythm,
that those measuring eyes could not see
although perhaps there are some
with fingers and ears
so close to the engines
with clean oil circulating through the ears
that purges the brain,
perhaps some…
could tell
what the bleeding secret of a woman consists of
As a woman
with sticky stars
at every point
of my skin
I could never
trust a man
who wasn’t a mechanic;
a man who uses his
eyes,
his hands,
listens
to the
heart.
***
My Wedding Certificate
There are shadows
that seem like dangerous stains
in your lungs
filling
a portrait of you
that I keep in my mind.
***
Story
A man asked me
the story of my life.
I said
that I did not have
a history.
That all my stories were lives,
like mushrooms,
apparently without roots,
though the spores, microscopic, that dance
in the earth
as my hand brushes your face while
you sleep,
no longer are they mysterious;
and I remembered that all my stories are one,
leaving a woman with a handful of silver
that becomes moonlight
fades like the air,
disappears with the sun,
while she remains with her open hands
and poetry that is music,
a song that circles us all
is what she has left,
her reality mysteriously,
perhaps microscopically, gone
to appear in another
swampy terrain.
I seek the wizard who understands
what is invisible
to the naked eye,
who reads poetry as a text
for a new species of garden,
that turns moonlight
into a handful of silver,
into something solid and real,
not illusion,
not old stories,
not the old version of life,
not poisonous mushrooms.
Mushrooms,
edible,
beautiful,
that drop their spores
and give life
just
as we do.
The story of my life
is
that it continues.
***
April Snow
I have the eye
of a photographer.
When I look out the window,
I see the photo
you took of me during that snowstorm in New York
ten years ago.
I wear a long, black coat that shines,
a Greta Garbo hat
and boots to warm my feet.
In today’s snowstorm, I wear a purple robe
and I sit with my white arms resting on a stout wooden table.
The house glows with yellow flowers,
whereas outside the only yellows are the car headlights,
moving cautiously
in the blizzard.