We present a selection of poems from After Bambi (Valparaíso, 2026), the latest work by acclaimed Argentine-Spanish poet Boris Rozas: a voice that explores with precision and beauty the unsettling passageways of memory, the ashes of things that depart, and the human condition exposed to the elements.
by Carolina Zamudio
Gringos
Firefly gringos driving their old cars
from what remains of their fear,
they keep walking through dreams
across the valleys of Baja California,
the currents of the Pacific
seem to push them in opposite directions.
The song of the lobster
roars softly in the cove,
children with cheeks reddened
by the Tijuana sun
burn across their backs,
they swarm at dawn like kangaroo rats
in pursuit of dollar bills,
gather fruit with open hands,
dig and dig,
separating the saguaro from the worm’s root.
In the background, the deceptive revelry
of the shacks
shrinks before the presence
of the assault rifle,
hardly an alley in which to take their time,
return to work
with an apron in one hand, a cigarette
in the other, finish the day at Pall Medical
writing prescriptions
for war veterans,
arms outstretched before Hanson
Lagoon
on some night that hurts a little less.
Golden Sauna
The rich young man staying under a false name
while humming hundred-dollar bills,
I am not him except in a few dreams,
but I could sell him my surname,
although he is white and does not need it.
He wears an enormous gold chain, walks in circles
like someone pacing back and forth inside his prison of organs,
recites Bob Kaufman on bread and water,
without even snorting devil’s hair.
Brothels are thieves
of solo tragedies
among the clear minority of poetic militancy,
social climbers who come to heal themselves
with lines and neon,
a traffic of jolts
to help the calendars fall into place.
He has turned the corner
treading across the carpet of night,
still unable to remember his name,
the sign promises a show,
in the bathrooms
there are cameras,
there was never any food in this house,
only the juice of banks, Bibles,
and solstices.
America, I do not forgive you.
If you are blown into the air, the vultures will burn
and bounce against the ceilings of saunas
for white men,
unless time
casts the first stone again
and we all go back to biting
our nails.
Larry Mullen
The fire spends the night and survives among the remains,
beneath the bridge there are no names
or designer clothes,
black holes of warm blood,
dense forests
to cross at night,
to dynamite the vein in stone forged
by a dark-skinned native,
dolls that glow in the dark
trying to reach
the promised kingdom.
The smell of scarred skin, lips sliding
over one another
until they bite into business cards;
beyond these walls the river is navigable,
the homeland a trembling bird
at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Once I whispered to you
that I would be Larry Mullen in East Berlin,
smiling beneath the sweat of the notes,
wait for me with a calcite-colored bouquet
at Cornavin,
imagine the scene:
I can leave it there without falling
to my knees,
empty myself onto the grass
like a stream,
imagine death wearing different clothes.
Rodeo
From that root,
this sawed-off shotgun that prowls and digs
like a guide dog,
the million-dollar question with its hair tied back:
what use is the night
if beyond it there is nothing but a patrol car
with its lights on?
So make one false move
and you are a dead man
with black hair and green eyes.
Miguel Arteche’s song of the bishop,
with its white hand,
the undergrowth: what use is the night
if beyond it there is nothing
but this trick of stairways
and fire?
As that plot contracts
with the voice before the trigger,
the ash crosses the bridge
to let itself fall
upon the river.
Children of the Zoo
There are two lines for throwing oneself
into this ravine:
one for the orphans, the disabled, the sick,
the mentally ill, the terminally ill, the debtors,
those who gradually let everything go…
The other for those who repent on the subway,
the suicides,
the raped girls, the thieves,
those who did not choose,
the artists…
I will not be the one to force you
to inhabit life,
but become accustomed to the speed
and pretend you find yourself
on that bench
beside the absences.
Boris Rozas. Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an Argentine-Spanish poet based in Spain and the author of more than twenty poetry collections. His work explores memory, displacement, precarity, and everyday experience through a restrained, melancholic, and contemporary voice, attentive to those who inhabit the margins and to the forms of resistance found in ordinary life.
He has received numerous literary honors, including the VI Juan Ramón Jiménez International Poetry Prize of Coral Gables for Wes Borland aprende a tocar de oído. In 2026, Valparaíso Ediciones published After Bambi, a book that explores contemporary exposure through themes including violence, fatherhood, memory, and the fragility of human bonds.
