-
It Could Well Be, and: And the Head Began to Burn
- Minnesota Review
- Duke University Press
- Number 29, Fall 1987 (New Series)
- pp. 16-18
- Article
- Additional Information
16 the minnesota review Alfonsina Stornì It Could Well Be It could well be that all I have felt was only whatever was never meant to be, was only something forbidden and repressed from family to family, from woman to woman. They say that in my people's ancestral homes what we should do has been meted out. They say that women have been silent in my maternal home . . . Oh, it could well be . . . At times my mother was attacked by the whim of liberating herself, but before her eyes a deep bitterness rose up, and she cried in the shadows. And all of that, biting, conquered, mutilated, all that she found shut up in her heartwithout wanting to, I think I've liberated it. Translated by Marion Freeman Storni 17 Alfonsina Storni And the Head Began to Burn On the black wall a square opened up that looked out over the void. And the moon rolled up to the window; it stopped and said to me: "I'm not moving from here; I'm looking at you. I don't want to grow or get thin. I'm the infinite flower that opens up in the square hole in your house. I no longer want to roll on behind the lands that you don't know, my butterfly, sipper of shadows. Or rain phantoms over the far off cupolas that drink me." And I didn't answer. A head was sleeping under my hands. 18 the minnesota review White, like you, moon. The wells of its eyes held a dark water streaked And suddenly my head began to burn like the stars at twilight. And my hands were stained with a phosphorescent substance. And with it I burn the houses of men, the forests of beasts. Translated by Marion Freeman ...