A Page in Your Name

Your name can be bitten like an apple.
It smells like Manila mango and mandarin orange.
It leaves my tongue purple like chagalapolin
and the escobilla.

I crush it and breathe mint.
As I separate it a pomegranate explodes.

It grows to the height of a sugarcane flower, it's the vine
that climbs the fence or reaches to the edge of the patio,
persecutor of coral snakes, watermelons, and verdolagas.

If I shake it, I hear the water that fills it.
If I give it to the mad man of the house, he will return to the top
of the hill and make it a flute.

To free me from darkness I keep it in a jar.
With the light it makes it illuminates this page.

Francisco Hernández
Translated by Marlon L. Fick
Prairie Schooner. Volume 76, Number 2.Summer 2002