Jèssica Pujol Duran, translated from the Spanish by the poet
The Barista’s Cycle
Now receive word that your goddess has fucked off.
Subjugate the remnants of your promise into anger at your staff.
—Verity Spott, Click Away Close Door Say
After the tube opens its doors
After the shopping centre opens its doors
After opening the shutters and typing a code that opens the doors to my workday
With suitable shoes, my name on the label,
I access my position, turn on the machines,
represent the choreography of gestures:
Across the corridor a cardboard goat advertises the cheese section
An ungulated jump, like the ones that detach stones from the Mediterranean crags,
over tables, pastries and teacups
is what separates me from lunch
My supervisor, to the right, tries to compensate with strict gesticulation the strict secondary role
of the franchise:
he slaps my hand
the milk doesn’t have foam
I twist my tongue outwards, frankly, Ernest,
enter text
here
(bleat)
I ascend through the elliptical path of the shopping centre,
flaming like a summer bush on fire,
hoping, mad, on the verge of giving the change
at the till I step back down
the escalators
with my immense udder
I nurse this threadlike order
of entering and exiting
A mixture of foam and ash
sprinkles the yellow stones
I turn the frother on
for every latte on the surface
with small wrist vibrations
I draw up a heart,
for every chance that you turn up from the counter corner
I perceive
a new imaginary
around |him| il bel viso i begli occhi i capei d’oro accelerate the hours of my contract
although you are not the excuse for this
this is not a caprice
I was late, we bumped into each other in the underground and you blocked my way
what brand of bleach do you use?
I don’t have time to do my tax return
and if I slip, how will it be
with the insurance?
(dirty teared cloths
glossed lips
wash the cloths wash the hands outline the lips)
I move stealthily, impassible Durga, a utensil in each hand
I run my eyes over the syrups,
my fingertips on the labels:
apricot, almond, strawberry,
vanilla, hazelnut, banana
viscosity flows
I remember all its names
and lick their borders
My supervisor slaps my hand when I don’t bend the milk jar in the milk frother enough to
texturize it at 60º,
I support the weight of the cup on the plate
with the teaspoon, the sugar,
the kindliness of the biscotti
my body is cold and comes from the future
Not any telling works: power outflanks,
The habit of abuse is in the signifier,
The search for your voice in other people’s timbre,
I try my luck with a different tense:
An altered trip, a damaged vocabulary
And all newness out of sight on the synaptic panel which lit up
through trial and error
through trial and error
through trial and error
twisting and turning
before stumbling against the underbrush, we danced intersubjective dances on the pinnace, Alice,
your face in my sea a tear,
the incorporated language didn’t have a body
but here’s all wrong,
I eat too much
Or not enough,
Now, I tremble imagining myself:
Chattering about the weather with the clients,
Chattering about the weekly rota with my colleagues,
Chattering about the angle of the milk-jar in the frother with my supervisor,
My new chatty language
Doesn’t identify with my old container
And I tremble
In the relation
To lose distance for an informative lie
is an instance
to lose distance for a toxic murmur
is an instance
to lose distance for a syrupy memory of your abuse
is an instance
is an instance
another instance
of the tremor
My movements interrupted by reflection /
reflection interrupted by its transcendence /
the idea goes back to fulfilment /
the coffee stain to the scald /
the scald to touching /
we are not
at all
imaginary
In each reverberation we rinse off some consciousness
this is my working day
Di-di, how long until he comes?
we hum together how long will it be? How long?
the journey of the hands is time-consuming, my productivity locked into the prison of
this imaginary, bleach and syrup, a chain of concepts
Laura, how long?
The bubbles on the chilled surface exhale liquid air,
Our smiles are superimposed like stamps on a loyalty card,
The centrings that join our milky vaults are colloquial
I turn the handle, go-go,
Our evaporated dance,
We hum along
Up to the payslip
Though the echoing aisle
The bodies of the workers move without touching each other over the pavement that gathers
our death cells like prickly rolling tumbleweeds
This is the Western of custom
Here syrups, cookies and pastries are branded-flavoured
Coffee is free trade
Milk doesn’t have lactose
The voyage is lonely,
I yawn as I sweep,
Who cares if I finish now, comrade,
We are being gobbled down
By the futility of our shifts
I look for a job in the classifieds /
In three days of training, you learn the basic skills
I am communicative, I went to school, I am available in three languages
The reinvention of oneself /
We eat the stale sandwiches
Before the tube closes its doors
Before the shopping centre closes its doors
We have switched off the coffee machine
We have washed the filters, the steam wand
We have dusted off the wooden chairs and tables
We have turned on the dishwasher
We have replaced the milk bottles in the fridge, the syrups on the shelves, the cookies in the
glass jars, the cakes in the display window, the biscotti in the drawer
We have moved away the products that were out of date
We have emptied the till
We have turned off the shop lights
We have closed the doors
We have put down the shutters
Let’s go together
To the staff room,
Undo ourselves in the lockers,
Name, footwear, aegis,
And step down to the tube
Me inhaling, you exhaling
The smoke of a roll to end up on the sofa
Where the circadian periplus
Of the baristas ends
The uniform without tag is drying hung up in the bedroom,
The leftovers from dinner are drying on the plate,
The laundry holds the air in a plastic bag,
Question, how long?
The enveloping field grows
With the impression of the not-named
in and outs in the warehouse
Physiological translations
A fox crosses the street with a sandwich wrapper
Let’s try another tense, test that doesn’t end
The relation
In the dream
An altered journey
A change of tack in direction to oneself
A more adapted version
To the circumnavigation that frames our horizon
A parable
That no
No return ahead
As she was
¿how was she?
How will she come back as she was?
I don’t know, Marcel
I can’t remember
There were four points that needed changing in order to become as she should be:
Mainly, I remember now,
THESE were the points:
1
2
3
&
4
I analysed them while I was enumerating them and I agree with myself, I nod to myself, a change
was necessary was inevitable another subject I would dare to say
Formerly playing on stranded vessels by the beach, she should present herself on a
gleaming boat at her return she should be like
THIS from now on and until future change
(familiar jubilation, the shutter opens)
It is 6 am
This is not a caprice