Poem: Forgetfulness ~ Alfonsina Storni
Forgetfulness
~ Alfonsina Storni
Translated by Marion Freeman and Mary Crow
Lydia Rosa: today is Tuesday and it’s cold.
In your gray stone house, you sleep at the edge
Of the city. Do you still hang onto your lovesick heart
Now that you’ve died of love? I’ll tell you what’s happening.
The man you adored, the man with the cruel gray eyes,
He’s smoking his cigarette in the autumn afternoon.
From behind the windowpanes, he watches the yellow sky
And the street in which faded papers swirl.
He takes a book, draws near the cold heater,
And sitting down, he turns it on.
Only the noise of the clawed paper can be heard.
Five o’clock. You fell into his arms at that hour,
And maybe he remembers you . . . But his soft bed
Now holds the warm hollow of another rosy body.
