Un día de la semana I / Miyó Vestrini

One Weekday I

When you were born,
in 1938,
César Vallejo was dying.
When your little head,
your bellybutton,
your virgin little cunt,
were peeking into the world
from between your mother’s beautiful legs,
they were putting the poet in a hole.
They covered him with dirt
and you
were covered by memory.
You couldn’t choose.
Because if you choose
you live.
And if you live
you enjoy.
But enjoyment is the horror of sleep:
sleeping will be forever.
There will be a smell of fried peppers,
raucous voices at the bar.
It will be one day of the week,
when the furniture changes places at night
and in the morning,
women talk to themselves.
Your nose is sealed and your right eyebrow
is drooping more than the left one.
The thighs evened out,
the hair badly cut and the body lost
in a nightgown that covers up the grease in your waist.
Whether or not you had lunatic and sad grandparents,
will be established in the report
by a responsible functionary.
They will cross your arms over your chest
and it’s fatal,
because you will no longer be able
to use Afrin
to breathe better.
It’s not true your arms are convulsive
and your tantrums unpredictable.
False the glass you continue to steam up with your burps.
False your nipples, your reddish freckles.
Last night you had decided:
if I can’t sleep,
I’ll choose death.
But you didn’t expect the rack of lamb to melt,
soft,
creamy,
on your tongue.
You merely said:
two births,
ten abortions,
not a single orgasm.
And you took a long gulp of wine.
Vallejo too looked for a rack of lamb
in the menu at Le Coupole.
Everyone was looking at his sullen eyes,
while he merely thought about Beethoven’s silent ears.
He had asked his companion:
Why don’t you love me anymore?
What did I do?
How did I mess up?
The cassoulet pork left grease stains on his shirt.
Like you,
he felt a fatigued compassion for his body.
And he tried to guess who would be born that night,
as he tried to reconcile sleep.
Dying
requires time and patience.




{ Miyó Vestrini, Todos los poemas, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1994 }