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  • Hormiga, and: Ant
  • Jesse Lee Kercheval (bio)

Hormiga

¿Qué es esencial? Todas las cosas pequeñas

Chica pero importantecomo una brizna de hierbacomo una aspirinacuando me duele cada hueso

Con una lupa, miro la briznay veo una hormiga que llevauna miga diminuta y blancaen su hombros hacia su nido

¿Parte de mi aspirina?Para sus compañerosque tienen dolor como yopero en sus exoesqueletos

¿Porque quién no tiene dolores?Si no en la espalda, en el cuelloSi no en las rodillas, en los piesSi no en los huesos, en el corazón, en el alma

Tome una aspirina para nuestros pecadospara olvidar los actos de crueldadhacia nuestros esposos, vecinos,amigos, las hormigas

Las hormigas que trabajanmás duro que nosotrosque tienen más familia, más hijospara alimentar [End Page 49]

Acá, hormiguita,una aspirina entera para vosy una galletita de chocolatepara tu reina, tu razón de vivir

Me gustaría tenerun amor tan fuerteTe deseo mucha suerteTe deseo un día feliz

Espero que Dios me veacon la misma simpatía [End Page 50]

Ant

What is essential? All the little things

Small but importantlike a blade of grasslike an aspirinwhen every one of my bones ache

With a magnifying glass, I examinethe blade & see an ant carryinga tiny white crumbon his shoulders toward his nest

Part of my aspirin?For his fellow workerswho, like me, have aches & painsbut in their exoskeletons

Because who does not have pain?If not in the back, the neckIf not in the knees, the feetIf not in the bones, then in the heart,in the soul

Take an aspirin for our sinsto forget our acts of crueltytoward our spouses, neighbors,friends, the ants

The ants who workmuch harder than we dowho have more family,more children to feed [End Page 51]

Here, little ant,a whole aspirin just for youand a chocolate waferfor your queen, your reason to live

I wish I had a love that strongI wish you good luckI wish you a good day

I hope God looks down at mewith equal sympathy [End Page 52]

Jesse Lee Kercheval

Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of 12 books of poetry, fiction and memoir including the poetry collections Cinema Muto (SIU Press); Dog Angel (U of Pittsburgh Press); and World as Dictionary (Carnegie Mellon U. Press). She is currently at work on a bilingual Spanish/English collection of poetry Extranjera/Stranger and is also editing América invertida: an anthology of younger Uruguayan poets. She is the Zona Gale Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin.

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