primavera sta arrivando

home, today.

The Other

Gabriele Mistral

translated by yours truly 

I killed her,

the one I couldn’t love.

Hers were the solar flares

the prickly pear burst open. 

She was the thirst and the flame,

a fever.

Hers was the pebbled path,

and her shoulders mocked the sky;

not once did her gaze stoop

to peer into a yawning spring. 

Where she reclined

grass scorched into gold

forged by her breath,

and the coals of her cheek.

Her words turned to resin,

never to be sawed into dust

that would cloak a cello

or quiver from the pitch.

She couldn’t bow,

this mountain flower.

I did, though,

at her side.

Then I left her to die,

and took our heart with me.

Unfed

she died an eagle’s death.

Her wings beat the air into silence—

She bent, and fell

through my fingers

like ash into galactic wind.

Her sisters still sing of sirens,

accuse me of her death

and the desert’s chalk

carves into my skin.

In passing, I say:

“Reach into the cracks of the earth

and scoop from the stone

another burning eagle.

“If you can’t, then

forget her.

I killed her.

You must, too.”