The island Poem by Kirmen Uribe

So this is happiness,
that journeyman.
ANNE SEXTON


It's Sunday on the beach for all people of good desires.
You can hear the faraway noise of it from the island.

We go into the water naked,
We see anemones, red mullets, sea-thistles on the bayfloor.
Look—like the wind the wheat the water moves the sand.
I go under and behold you from underneath.
I like the slow movement of your hands and legs.
I like your underbelly's taking the form of seaweed.

We go up on dry land. It's hot and the pines make shadow.
Your arms are salty, your chest salty, belly salty.
The same power that joins the moon with the sea
has joined us, too.
Centuries become a second and seconds centuries.
Our bodies, peeled pears.

We see anemones, red mullets, sea-thistles on the bayfloor.
It's Sunday on the beach for all people of good desires.

Translated from the Basque by Elizabeth Macklin