TRES
Tres mujeres calladas en la mesa de la cocina.
La cocina de mi madre es chica y oscura pero desde la ventana
Se ve el campo, paralizado por el hielo.
Se extiende hasta donde llega la vista
Kilómetros planos hasta un cielo denso blanco sin luz.
Mamá y yo masticamos lechuga con cuidado.
El reloj de la cocina emite un zumbido grave que salta
Una vez por minuto sobre el doce.
Tengo la p. 216 de Emily abierta sobre la azucarera
Pero en secreto miro a mi madre.
Mil preguntas golpean mis ojos desde el interior.
Mi madre está analizando su lechuga.
Paso a la p. 217.
Es como si hubiéramos bajado a una atmósfera de vidrio.
Ahora y después un comentario atraviesa el vidrio.
Los impuestos del terreno de atrás. No hay buenos melones,
Es temprano para melones.
Un peluquero del pueblo encontró oro, cierra todos los jueves.
Ratones en el cajón de las servilletas otra vez.
Pequeñas bolitas. Se comen
Los bordes de las servilletas, con lo que cuestan
ahora las servilletas de papel.
Lluvia esta noche.
Lluvia mañana.
Ese volcán en Filipinas ahí otra vez. Como se llamaba
Anderson se murió no no Shirley
La cantante de opera. Negra.
Cáncer.
No comés la guarnición? No te gusta el pimiento?
Por la ventana puedo ver las hojas regulando sobre la llanura
y restos de nieve marcadas por la mugre de los pinos.
En el medio del campo
donde la tierra se hunde en una depresión,
el hielo empezó a desprenderse.
Mi madre habla repentinamente.
El psicoanálisis no te está haciendo bien no?
No lo estás superando.
No es como tomar aspirinas, respondí débilmente.
El Dr. Haw dice que el duelo es un proceso largo.
Ella frunce el ceño. Que se consigue
con todo ese remover el pasado?
-abrí mis manos-
Me voy a reponer! La miré a los ojos
Ella sonríe. Si, lo harás.
(fragmentos)
THREE
Three silent women at the kitchen table.
My mother’s kitchen is dark and small but out the window
there is the moor, paralyzed with ice.
It extends as far as the eye can see
over flat miles to a solid unlit white sky.
Mother and I are chewing lettuce carefully.
The kitchen wall clock emits a ragged low buzz that jumps
once a minute over the twelve.
I have Emily p. 216 propped open on the sugarbowl
but am covertly watching my mother.
A thousand questions hit my eyes from the inside.
My mother is studying her lettuce.
I turn to p. 217.
“In my flight through the kitchen I knocked over Hareton
who was hanging a litter of puppies
from a chairback in the doorway. . . .”
It is as if we have all been lowered into an atmosphere of glass.
Now and then a remark trails through the glass.
Taxes on the back lot. Not a good melon,
too early for melons.
Hairdresser in town found God, closes shop every Tuesday.
Mice in the teatowel drawer again.
Little pellets. Chew off
the corners of the napkins, if they knew
what paper napkins cost nowadays.
Rain tonight.
Rain tomorrow.
That volcano in the Philippines at it again. What’s her name
Anderson died no not Shirley
the opera singer. Negress.
Cancer.
Not eating your garnish, you don’t like pimento?
Out the window I can see dead leaves ticking over the flatland
and dregs of snow scarred by pine filth.
At the middle of the moor
where the ground goes down into a depression,
the ice has begun to unclench.
Black open water comes
curdling up like anger. My mother speaks suddenly.
That psychotherapy’s not doing you much good is it?
You aren’t getting over him.
My mother has a way of summing things up.
She never liked Law much
but she liked the idea of me having a man and getting on with life.
Well he’s a taker and you’re a giver I hope it works out,
was all she said after she met him.
Give and take were just words to me
at the time. I had not been in love before.
It was like a wheel rolling downhill.
But early this morning while mother slept
and I was downstairs reading the part in Wuthering Heights
where Heathcliff clings at the lattice in the storm sobbing
Come in! Come in! to the ghost of his heart’s darling,
I fell on my knees on the rug and sobbed too.
She knows how to hang puppies,
that Emily.
It isn’t like taking an aspirin you know, I answer feebly.
Dr. Haw says grief is a long process.
She frowns. What does it accomplish
all that raking up the past?
Oh—I spread my hands—
I prevail! I look her in the eye.
She grins. Yes you do.
Anne Carson
(Toronto, Canadá, 1950)
de Glass, Irony and God, New Directions Publishing, 1995
para leer una entrevista en PARIS REVIEW
Versión Patricio Grinberg
para leer MÁS
