Poem | From Quasi-Stories | Commonweal Magazine

The greengrocer counts
the shriveled, wrinkled,
inhuman apples,

and then he sells me
celery past it prime
and six green bananas.

And I take them all.
Seated in the back,
mute, his wife watches.

They’re newly established.
Their go at it, like others,
won’t make it a month,
so their eyes tell you.

translated from the Spanish
by Kathleen Snodgrass

Fabio Morábito is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Born of Italian parents in Alexandria, Egypt, he has lived in Mexico City for over forty years. His many awards include the Carlos Pellicer Prize for his first book of poems, Lotes baldíos, and the Antonin Artaud Prize for his short story collection, Grieta de fatiga. Kathleen Snodgrass is the author of The Fiction of Hortense Calisher (1993). Her translations of Mexican poets have appeared in such journals as Boulevard Magenta and Poetry London, and in the anthology Mexican Poetry Today (Shearsman Books, 2010).