maria negroni/ tr. anne twitty

no, daughter–said the mother–explanations will not help you capture me, nor explosive scenes. (Look me in the eye when I talk to you.) You must do exactly what I tell you: I want you to single file all by your lonely so that you will stream backwards, bewildered, until you become entangled. It is easy to avoid the temptation of the future, but how to preserve the plurality of pasts. Now you will have to examine every detail in a futile search for the center of the pattern. Now, stumble.

I cling to your scolding
          your voice barely           furious strident
            like a symbol representing love
                                (or an outbreak zone of the body)

            curious how memory considers the subject

            slightly a discord in the logic of things
            a certain dismantling

            what is this sadness shielding me from?

...missives, sentries, combatants. Intensity traveling without words. Diametrical. From all sides. Avidity in your antithesis. I struggle. How long? Spasmodic, somnambulant, silence rebounds along a canyon trail. Between your body and your body. As if caring for something I can't see. That windless place where dejection can be provoked by anything, a white fan, an empty or spotless nightmare...

Maria Negroni, LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO/CAGE UNDER COVER