Diana Goetsch, Nadando a Nueva Zelanda

Fotografía extraída de Crunchylypstick

NADANDO A NUEVA ZELANDA

Una o dos veces en la vida encuentras a una mujer
por la que cruzarías el océano a nado. ¿Qué estás haciendo?
Te preguntan tus amigos, mientras perfeccionas tus brazadas,
y te compadeces de todos los excluidos del amor.
Tu único obstáculo, el Pacífico azul—
donde se hunde tu sol, ella está vistiéndose a la mañana,
y cuando el amanecer gira y vuelve para rodearte
subiéndole el volumen a tu ciudad,
ella está cerrando postigos, sacándose el maquillaje.
Si fueras Gatsby construirías una mansión
en alguna caleta alejada del mar de Tasmania
y darías fiestas para tentarla. No lo eres,
está claro—aunque nada es imposible,
salvo la vida sin ella, así que nadas.

SWIMMING TO NEW ZEALAND

Once or twice in life you find a woman

you’d swim the ocean for. What are you doing?

friends will ask, as you perfect your stroke,

meantime pitying everyone outside of love.

Your only obstacle, the blue Pacific—

where your sun sinks, she’s dressing in the morning,

and when the dawn comes reaching back around,

turning up the volume in your city,

she’s drawing blinds, removing her make-up.

If you were Gatsby you would build a mansion

in some cove off the Tasmanian sea

and throw parties to lure her in. You’re not

of course—though nothing’s impossible,

except life without her, and so you swim.

DIANA DIXIT

This poem was inspired by a woman I met five years ago, who was living in New Zealand. In real life, we had many more obstacles than just “the blue Pacific,” so I’m pretty sure that’s a metaphor. Likening myself to Gatsby may have been a less accurate metaphor; by the time the poem appeared in Nameless Boy I had changed my name and was living as a woman. Garrison Keillor subsequently read it in The Writer’s Almanac, attributing it to Douglas Goetsch, who didn’t exist. Then it was published in New Zealand of all places, in braille, under the name Diana—my first female byline. In all the flux, what remains unchanged is my passionate love for women. That love—along with the question, 

Who would want to be with me?

—was my biggest fear when I decided to transition.

en Women's Voices For Change

Diana Goetsch
(Brooklyn, NY, EE.UU., 1963)
de Nameless Boy, Orchises Press, 2015
Traducción de Inés Garland
para leer + en OTRA IGLESIA ES IMPOSIBLE
su WEB