Delayed Tropical Syndrome

At first, thought did not know;
the body submitted its testimony
in the night:

the left rib entered the rainy season
earlier than the right,
the skin salted itself without cause,
the root of the tongue—like a customs seal
long held in detention—
stamped a certain name back into the blood.

I tried to speak.

But language began to resist me.
It refused to become a statement,
arranging itself in the throat
as quarantine lines, tide tables,
a redacted medical file.
All verbs became inflamed;
all pronouns refused their posts.
I said “weather,” and it grew lymph nodes;
I said “yesterday,”
and from deep in the gums
it summoned an army unable to retreat.

Then the world, too, was implicated.

North of the equator,
the city contracted a slow visceral smog;
mildew multiplied in the archives,
laws curled in the humidity,
and the white walls of the hospital secreted
the sap of tropical plants.
Doctors searched for spells under microscopes;
shamans measured absolution with thermometers.
Blind insects migrated through the radar echoes,
and the phases of the moon, like a broken state seal,
approved the same pain
to enter my bones, my room, my sleep,
and the republic.

Logic loses its temperature here.

No diagnosis holds.
A wind at the window
breaks the fever’s seal.
I take apart the names
and find only heat
where grammar should have cooled.

In the end, I can only admit:

these climatic anomalies,
this edema of institutions,
neuritis, medical certificates, rainstorms—
none of them were meant to prove
that the world had a lesion.

Only this: I miss you.

---

中文翻译

迟发性热带症候

起初，思想并不知道；
身体在夜里
提交了它的证词：

左侧肋骨比右侧
更早进入雨季，
皮肤无缘无故地渗出盐分，
舌根——像一枚海关印章
被长期扣押之后——
又把某个名字
盖回血液之中。

我试着说话。

但语言开始抗拒我。
它拒绝成为陈述，
在喉咙里
自行排列成检疫线、潮汐表，
一份被涂黑的病历。
所有动词都开始发炎；
所有代词都拒绝归位。
我说“天气”，它便长出淋巴结；
我说“昨天”，
它便从牙龈深处
召来一支无法撤退的军队。

随后，世界也被牵连其中。

赤道以北，
城市感染了一场缓慢的内脏性雾霾；
霉菌在档案里繁殖，
法律在湿热中卷曲，
医院的白墙渗出
热带植物的汁液。
医生在显微镜下寻找咒语；
萨满用体温计丈量赦免。
盲目的昆虫迁徙过雷达回波，
月相像一枚破损的国印，
批准同一种疼痛
进入我的骨头、我的房间、我的睡眠，
以及共和国。

逻辑在这里失去体温。

没有任何诊断能够成立。
窗边的一阵风
打破了高烧的封印。
我拆开那些名字，
只找到热
停在语法本该冷却的地方。

最后，我只能承认：

这些气候异常，
这场制度的水肿，
神经炎、医疗证明、暴雨——
它们都并不是为了证明
世界患有某种病灶。

只是这样：我想你。