Content area
Full Text
I am guilty of everything and I accept it.
She who I am not - but who usurps me out of habit and fear-
bites
the sophistication of the bread
like a caress:
Crushes the serpent.
Swallows the sword.
Opens the forbidden lattices:
God entered my body of ten years.
Ah, vanity of vanities, vainglory of theophagy;
neither my mother nor the mother of my father could devour
an entire, round, white soundless god.
It is not I-but how well I pretend to be, under a tender smile-
who now sits,
not at the right,
not at the left,
But in the middle:
In the throne of tinsel and tin cans
dictating the future of her race for ever and ever, world without end.
And chooses to save you, Ana Excilia Bregante,
affectionate mulata of Atares,
keeper of the oranges,
lady of coral and canistel,
mistress of flan de calabaza,
grandmother and martyr,
while the country is torn to pieces
in bombings and killings.
I save you
and I save my name from oblivion and from hell,
today,
December 8, 1956.
A slow finger traces the circle of my eternity:
seven letters
my name, a way of saying yes,
my name that fills the space,
my word-name,
my poem-name.
The Word that remakes chaos. The prophecy that creates order.
Only ripe fruit is humble enough to kiss the ground.
Go find yourself a...