By Luis Alberto Ambroggio

Translated by Yvette Neisser

 

 

NIGHT’S THREE HUSBANDS

 

 

          Beloved black hair

                   --Borges

 

The legend speaks

of an alluring black woman,

Night. She seduces spirits

with her deep, sparkling jewels.

Her suitors are innumerable.

 

Passionate black light,

in a sky where the prohibited is unwritten.

Mother of the gods, Hesiod called her.

Both a goddess and a romantic adventurer.

 

Voluptuous lady of fervent dominion

who dresses in black to hide her flames.

She falls in love with gentle breezes

and finds union in full-moon orgasms.

The inflamed planets are witnesses.

Night, who never was a virgin,

often visits, casting her spells.

It is wrong to believe that she acts only

as a passive accomplice

to others’ smoke,

to fragrant cautions,

to insatiable doves,

to innocent events,

to damp dialogues with the thick penumbra—

she has hands, tongue, red steam,

flesh that shouts

drops of fire in vigilant ovens.

 

She had three husbands,

says the Viking legend.

 

Her first, Naglfari,

a blue or golden prince, a desirable bachelor.

He satisfied his misguided lover’s innocence

in a flash, fleeting and intense

the way a young fire is tamed.

With him, she had a child—named Space—

who was vast, uncertain, pure

like the life ahead of her

after breaking the betrothal.

The union lasted one opportune moment

(and no more), stresses the myth.

 

She, night of many men, finally called it off,

exhausted by the inexperienced savageness

of the muscles that penetrated her dark, flaming fibers,

down to the depth of that which is superficially penetrable.

Her feminine mystery endures in her,

inexhaustible, attractive behind her loose hair.

 

Free again, she looks for someone to consume her and take her away.

The night conquers.

Soft dome of secrets

she hides the seeds of good and evil in her whims.

 

The second husband, as in any competition,

is the most interesting.

According to ancient legend,

his name is “the Other” (he has no other name).

Someone practically unknown

with whom intimacy can be absolute.

Ear, cloth, water and fire in the desert,

joyous body that brings life to the neglected place.

Night surrenders to him boldly, dissolving,

valleys and skies conjugate

in a dark, borderless game.

Birds, cicadas, faraway whistles, sing, celebrate;

night winds, breaths, black presentiments

rock the comfortable security sparked by anonymity.

The surrender is easy. No anxious questioners stalk her.

With the delicious Other she shares a taste of secret passions.

Silence does not sleep.

Sometimes, like a coward, it shuts out the lights.

 

And from Night (from her beautiful womb)

and the Other, a daughter is born, whom they call Earth.

Tragic Earth, daughter of Night and the Other,

almost an orphan and often confused.

(In the vast mythology, Odin also fathered

a daughter named earth.)

The legend does not mention if there was a divorce

nor the indecipherable nudity of her marriages,

but that finally Night, in her maturity, decides

to choose a third, acceptable spouse—

a brilliant, promising viking of the blonde race

(in conformity with the matchmaking laws).

 

Dawn, Delling, his exact name;

a name reflecting the soul, power in letters and syllables,

destined pauses and hours.

“The third time is the charm,” gossiping tongues

would say in English.

 

And from Dawn and Night—a full, warm goddess—

Day is born, as if from death there could bloom

a concrete, explosive white.

He is born with all his teeth,

naked like a child or like a freed servant

taking in the sun at ease.

He takes after the father’s family.

 

With her dead husbands sunk behind reckless decisions,

fertile Night endures in Space, Earth and Day.

 

Night’s births and deaths

have no hour, they lengthen and get lost

in the intoxicating black where everything grows.

Those who enjoy the intense love of her dark caresses

suffer a hidden passion beneath her soft, robust body,

body of light and darkness.

(Roque Dalton loved four distant women at the same time.)

 

Night, mother and wife.

 

The warm shadows that harbor magic and paradoxes

invent certain invisible populations,

heaven and hell.

 

Beloved black hair,

Night always marries three times.

Her skin is like ours.

The legend does not end. We want children.