Brief Remarks on Love by Sonia Manzano translated by Alexis Levitin and Fernando Iturburu

Brief Remarks on Love

I place the word love

close to my ear

and it tells me nothing

I sink my canines

into the deceptive pulp of love

and its flesh exudes

a taste of ash

And I let fickle love

graze with its firm thighs

the shield of ice

that protects my fears

and love withdraws

wounded by the shards

of my frigid fever.

Now

I caress a bad memory of love

with my amputated hand.

Take away this cup from me

don´t ask me to speak of love

don´t make me sweat clotted blood

on this most arid

mount of olives

I clasp my hands in prayer

and beg “let there be love”

but love is not given

How can you ask me

to speak of something I still have not invented?

I do not want love

to come again to bore into my heart,

that turning of the screw

in vivid red

As long as I preserved

a certain capacity for love

I was an acceptable poet

now I am

a silenced Sybil

unable to predict

which vessel with no destination

will bring you to your destiny

Brief Remarks on Love by Sonia Manzano translated by Alexis Levitin and Fernando Iturburu