Interior Testimony

Translated from the Spanish of Amando Fernández (Havana, 1948-Miami, 1994) by Orlando Ricardo Menes

There is a hidden solitude at the moment of falling in love
that cannot be erased from our arms,
nor from the useless skin, nor from the heartbeat that awakens
     so many things
and threatens to sunder the sleepiness in our eyes.
It is a debt to our flesh
that cannot be rescued and never admits delay or indebtedness
     when defeat comes;
it is a hidden taste of bitterness and of conjectured coffins.
It is ash mixed with a caress.
It is a broken garden where our steps lose their way. 

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Amando Fernandez has published nine collections of poetry, most notably, Herir el tiempo, El ruiseñor y la espada, and Museo natural. The collections Ciudad, isla invisible, and El riesgo calculado were published posthumously in 1994. In addition to these collections, Fernandez was awarded for his poetry, which included: the Luis de Góngora, the Juan Ramón Jiménez, and the Antonio González de Lama prizes. Fernandez attended Florida International University and subsequently taught at the Interamerican Campus of Miami Dade College.

Orlando Ricardo Menes is an NEA Fellow and a winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and the author of six poetry collections, most recently Memoria from LSU Press. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, most recently in Poetry, the Cincinnati Review, and Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame where he is a Professor of English.