After the Storm / Después de la Tormenta

By MARA PASTOR
Translated by MARÍA JOSÉ GIMÉNEZ

Dozens of cars
wait in line
for a little fuel.

At the gas station
they’re waiting for a ladder
that leads to a generator.

Faith is waiting
in this line
for the machine to work.

We want
a little fuel
to reach our village
and see if our house is still standing.

We want gas
as our honeymoon.

All verbal forms
are unlikely options.

What remains of the scenery
is people lined up
waiting
for a machine to work.

//

Decenas de carros
esperan en la fila
por un poco de combustible.

En la gasolinera
esperan por una escalera
que lleve a un generador.

La fe es esperar
en esta fila
a que la máquina funcione.

Nosotros queremos
un poco de combustible
para llegar a nuestro pueblo
y ver si nuestra casa sigue en pie.

Queremos gasolina
como luna de miel.

Todas las formas verbales
son opciones improbables.

Lo que queda de paisaje
es gente alineada
esperando
a que la máquina funcione.

Mara Pastor is a Puerto Rican poet. Her works include the translated chapbooks As Though the Wound Had Heard and Children of Another Hour, and, in Spanish, Sal de Magnesio, Arcadian Boutique, and Poemas para Fomentar el Turismo. She lives in Ponce, Puerto Rico. 

María José Giménez is a poet, translator, and editor who has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, and the Katharine Bakeless Nason Endowment. Assistant translation editor of Anomaly, Giménez is the translator of Tilting at Mountains (Edurne Pasaban), Red, Yellow, Green (Alejandro Saravia), and As Though the Wound Had Heard (Mara Pastor). 

[Purchase Issue 16 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

After the Storm / Después de la Tormenta

Related Posts

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.

Waterfall

River Landscape

DANIELA ALCIVAR BELLOLIO
The image came to him all the time, uncontrollably, relentlessly: a face, combining incomprehension and terror perfectly, as though they were a natural combination. Pain was almost absent from this mixture, though he was certain that there, too, must have been pain. The image came to him all the time.

Anna Malihot and Olena Jenning's headshots

August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings

ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges