***
how dark my skin is left by her shadow
night
the weeping animal
arid bareness
its hunger I’d known so well
***
come alone
silent thirst
offer me
your bitter wealth of flesh
I am the animal you hush
by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial
Translated by Layla Benitez-James
From OSCURA DEJA LA PIEL SU SOMBRA
by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial
Translated by Layla Benitez-James
These poems were first published by Copper Nickel, reprinted by permission of the author and translator.
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Beatriz Miralles de Imperial is the author of Oscura deja la piel su sombra, Y todo es silencio, and El viento sopla donde quiere. Bea is founder and director of the micro press Ad Minimum. She has poems published in English translation in Copper Nickel, Poetry Magazine, and forthcoming in Poetry London.
Layla Benitez-James is the author of the prize-winning God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode, but He Had To Make Sure. A 2022 NEA fellow in translation and 2022/23 National Book Critics Circle Fellow, more of her work is published in Poetry Magazine, Black Femme Collective, and Poetry London.