Sebastián Gómez Matus
trans. by Ian U Lockaby
Love Could Be There
like a plaza
in a magnetic field,
a conch
holding the ashes.
A hollow bone where humanity
circulates in miniature,
a viaduct that will lead us
out of the planet.
A bird’s foot
that with three or four notes
sinks space.
Sebastián Gómez Matus (Osorno, Chile, 1987) is a poet and translator. He's the author of PO, La Constitution Borrada, Como Imaginé Bagdad, and Animal muerto, which was a finalist in the Juego Florales Gabriela Mistral 2019. He has published book-length translations of Mary Ruefle, Chika Sagawa, Etel Adnan, and Zachary Schomburg. He lives in Santiago.
Ian U Lockaby is a poet and translator whose work has been or will be published in Witness Magazine, Denver Quarterly, Washington Square Review, Poet Lore, Hobart, Anomaly, and elsewhere. His translation of Gardens, by Chilean poet Carlos Cociña, was published by Cardboard House Press in 2021. He's the editor of Mercury Firs, and lives in New Orleans.