From Suddenly a Summer

Anna PantinatTranslated by Gabriella Martin

“Counting by sea (so that I may also be called a sailor).”

GABRIEL FERRATER

La Conca

Buoyed by my seashore, a stripped-down crew on this rocky whale, endearing every day. I will play along to belong, yes, I will. And with the same baskets and matching sandals, we’ll call ourselves a community without shame. We’ll sail, carried away by the wind and the current, to become, little by little, brazen, liminal, isolated, barbaric.

“I’m the hunter.”BJÖRK

ARTEMIS

Nocturnal as the logsstacked in the cellar,the hunter is still.Cat’s eyes, breathing to the beatof her prey, synchronyof a precise motion, the chancehas come.
The present so multiplied,set to flames in this fraction.Right here. All alone. Now.

“And, scattering the aligned letters,my soul saddensremembering the snow drifts sulliedby tourists’ dirty footprints.”VÍCTOR RAHOLA

Notes

My first friendships are the truest. Workers, summer vacationers, townsfolk. With the second generation comes Risk, tarot cards, Anaïs Nin, Eva, lipstick on cigarettes, an exploding empty glass.

“Cadaqués was where I had a coffee or glass of wine almost every day with my neighbor Marcel Duchamp, his wife Tiny, and even one day, with his guest Max Ernst, as if it were the most natural thing.”ROSA REGÀS

Elysian

The other world is here, it still is:the fluid medium of phantomsslicing wind gusts like shovels through smoke.
The visible ones and the bodiless legacy,glistening skins swimming gently, unceasing.Social life and the other life.

“With Empordà so close, bread is guaranteed.”JOSEP PLA

Maritime Arrangement

The fabrics arrive by boat from India, bought on credit. I’ll sell them at an outrageous price. “It’s Empordà.” I don’t have a room of my own here, but I work in a shop with a view.

“The wind, the wind seduces my happy vessel.” CARLES RIBA

Scuba Diving

It was a difficult choice. So many waves and so many books muddle one’s sense of transcendence, this tiny rowboat of a well-turned phrase.