READERS

by Luis García Montero 

Translated from the Spanish by Jason Barry 

Love is also a negotiated light. 
We are night boats that have anchored in this room, 
together in one bed like a port. 
It doesn’t matter if you don’t turn 


off the light, if I can fall asleep while you read. 
A lighthouse flashes again from your breast 
so that Ulysses can find justice, 
while Fortunata 


shipwrecks on the streets 
of Madrid and Hope defends herself 
with a happiness that’s buried in each of our stories. 
You don’t complain 


when I turn on the lights too early. 
I sleep little. Let’s say at five my nightstand’s like 
a cargo dock where words 
load and unload, passing through your dreams. 


We walk with Baudelaire 
through New York, Federico in Paris, 
while Machado crosses the border 
and Cernuda talks with Galdós under a Mexican sky. 


Love is also a negotiated light. 
You give me your dreams so that mine will go on living. 
I give you mine to guard yours. Our stories 
entangled now like bodies. 

Jason Barry holds graduate degrees from Boston University and the University of Oxford. His work has appeared in Literary Matters, The Cortland Review, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, The Adroit Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, Bad Lilies, Poet Lore, Thrush Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, Fossil & Wing (Dos Madres Press), won the 2023 Wil Mills Award at the West Chester University Poetry Center and his poem, “Metro-North,” was selected by Ada Limón to feature on The Slowdown, a podcast supported by American Public Media and the Poetry Foundation. He has been offered artist scholarships and grants from Poetry by the Sea, Boston University, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. 

Luis García Montero, born in Granada in 1958, is one of Spain’s most celebrated poets and public intellectuals. Author of the poetry collections Habitaciones separadas (Separate Rooms), La intimidad de la serpiente (The Intimacy of the Snake), and Un año y tres meses (A Year and Three Months) among other volumes, García Montero’s literary works are known for their profound exploration of human emotions, social issues, and the complexities of contemporary life. García Montero has been awarded several of the most prestigious literary prizes in the Spanish-speaking world for his poetry and criticism, including the Adonais Prize for Poetry (Spain), The National Poetry Award (Spain), The National Critics Award (Spain), and the Latin American Poets Award (Mexico) among others. As a professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Granada, García Montero has also contributed significantly to the academic discourse on Spanish, Latin American, and European Literature. He is currently Director of the Cervantes Institute.