Image of the inside of a cave, sand on the ground.
Photo by Bradley Dunn / Unsplash

It’s amazing what rain can do to a stained wall
Said an angel from the custodial team
To the housewives
Who every morning
Pick up the remains of god
From the dream of the working man
His how-tos leave indelible marks
Over the filthy land, openings in heaven
Illuminated, I walk to his cave
He hugs me too tight to be human
His long fingers
In a victory sign hold the sky up
I walk over the air that I breathe
I expire
And somewhere it is dawning
Everything breathes
And it’s impossible to be dead
Impossible god
With few words you created me
And I do all this
I create all this
And when I feel I’ve turned my back on the truth
I turn around
And I know it’s my love that you love

Read the original poem in Spanish here

Tilsa Otta

Tilsa Otta is a Peruvian writer and multimedia artist. She has published several books of poetry, short stories, poems for children, comics, and the novel Lxs niñxs de oro de la alquimia sexual.

Farid Matuk

Farid Matuk’s most recent project, Redolent, a book arts collaboration with Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, won the Anna Rabinowitz Prize from the Poetry Society of America. In October of 2024, Graywolf Press will release his translations of Tilsa Otta’s verse under the title The Hormone of Darkness: A Playlist.