qarrtsiluni

28 Noviembre 1520, Antonio Pigafetta

My Lord, it was the Feast of Saint Ursula.
Thus was Fernando moved to name the cape
we rounded after passing the straits

of Tierra del Fuego. There were of course no such creatures
to be seen. Only the sea, always the sea,
its tangles of kelp matted like hair

wanting the ministrations of a tortoise-shell comb…
It is many, many months since our last memory
of women: candled fingertips touched to holy

water in the basin, pale ankles glimpsed as they ascended
dark stairways leading to rooms suffused with the mingled
scent of rancid sausages and violets…

The hardships we have endured! Three months
and twenty days since we laid bare the last of our provisions.
All that remains we eat: old biscuits ground to powder,

sifted with grubs and sawdust. We soaked
strips of ox-hide from the main-yard in sea water, then
roasted them on coals. This is how

we entered the Cape of Desire—retching and heaving;
and those calm waters which Fernando christened
Pacific. The horizon a line

clean as a hem of bleached muslin, rippling in the wind.

by Luisa A. Igloria

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