Unfinished Business
Laura Cesarco Eglin
I was born without nails. Unfinished. Very different from forever. No nails
to cling to or claw at something. Something, my life. Funny how I have to
fight for what’s already mine. Hold on fast because it quickly becomes
someone else’s. Slowly, I nail the photo of you to the wall. Trying to hold
on does not always look the same. It happens regardless of how tight or
how loose, regardless of the speed you do it at. Maybe I bite my nails to
restart. Or because my teeth need sharpening.
Uruguayan poet and translator (from Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician) Laura Cesarco Eglin’s latest poetry collection is Life, One Not Attached to Conditionals (Thirty West Publishing House, 2020). She’s the translator of Hilda Hilst’s Of Death. Minimal Odes (co.im.press), which won the 2019 BTBA. Cesarco Eglin is the publisher of Veliz Books.