Wednesday, June 01, 2005

"Speaking of Gabriel" -- Rosario Castellenos

This from a beautiful book called These are not sweet girls, an anthology of Latin American women poets.

Speaking of Gabriel

Like all guests my son got in the way
taking up a space that was my space,
existing at all the wrong times,
making me divide each bite in two.

Ugly, sick, bored,
I felt him grow at my expense,
steal the color from my blood, add
clandestine weight and volume
to my way of being upon the earth.

His body begged for birth, begged me to let him pass,
allot him his place in the world,
and the portion of time he needed for his history.

I agreed. And through the wound of his departure,
through the hemorrhage of his breaking free,
the last I ever felt of solitude, of myself
looking through a pane of glass, also slipped away.

I was left open, an offering
to visitations, to the wind, to presence.

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