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.Remind me how we loved our mother’s bodyour mouths drawing the firstthin sweetness from her nipplesour faces dreaming hour on hourin the salt smell of her lapRemind mehow her touch melted childgriefhow she floated great and tender in our darkor stood guard over usagainst our willingand how we thought she lovedthe strange male body firstthat took, that took, whose taking seemed a lawand how she sent us weepinginto that lawhow we remet her in our childbirth visionserect, enthroned, abovea spiral stairand crawled and panted toward herI know, I remember, buthold me, remind meof how her woman’s flesh was made taboo to us3.And how beneath the veilblack gauze or white, the draggingbangles, the amulets, we dreamedAnd how beneaththe strange male bodieswe sank in terror or in resignationand how we taught them tenderness—the holding-back, the play,the floating of a fingerthe secrets of the nippleAnd how we ate and dranktheir leavings, how we served themin silence, how we toldamong ourselves our secrets, wept and laughedpassed bark and root and berryfrom hand to hand, whispering each one’s powerwashing the bodies of the deadmaking celebrations of doing laundrypiecing our lore in quilted galaxieshow we dwelt in two worldsthe daughters and the mothersin the kingdom of the sons4.Tell me again because I need to hearhow we bore our mother-secretsstraight to the endtied in unlawful ragsbetween our breastsmuttered in bloodin looks exchanged at the feastwhere the fathers sucked the bonesand struck their bargainsin the open square when noonbattered our shaven headsand the flames curled transparent in the sunin boats of skin on the ice-floe—the pregnant set to drift,too many mouths for feeding—how sister gazed at sisterreaching through mirrored pupilsback to the mother5.C.had a son on June 18th … I feel acutely that we are strangers, my sister and I; we don’t get through to each other, or say what we really feel.This depressed me violently on that occasion, when I wanted to have only generous and simple feelings towards her, of pleasure in her joy, affection for all that was hers.But we are not really friends, and act the part of sisters.I don’t know what really gives her pain or joy, nor does she know how I am happy or how I suffer.(1963)There were years you and Ihardly spoke to each otherthen one whole nightour father dying upstairswe burned our childhood, reams of paper,talking till the birds sangYour face across a table now: darkwith illuminationThis face I have watched changingfor forty yearshas watched me changingthis mind has wrenched my thoughtI feel the separatenessof cells in us, split-second choiceof one ovum for one sperm?We have seized different weaponsour hair has fallen longor short at different timeswords flash from you I never thought ofwe are translations into different dialectsof a text still being writtenin the originalyet our eyes drink from each otherour lives were driven down the same dark canal6.We have returned so farthat house of childhood seems absurdits secrets a fallen hair, a grain of duston the photographic platewe are eternally exposing to the universeI call you from another planetto tell a dreamLight-years away, you weep with meThe daughters never weretrue brides of the fatherthe daughters were to begin withbrides of the motherthen brides of each otherunder a different lawLet me hold and tell you1976A WOMAN DEAD IN HER FORTIES1.Your breasts/sliced-offThe scarsdimmedas they would have to beyears laterAll the women I grew up with are sittinghalf-naked on rocksin sunwe look at each other andare not ashamedand you too have taken off your blousebut this was not what you wanted:to show your scarred, deleted torsoI barely glance at youas if my look could scald youthough I’m the one who loved youI want to touch my fingersto where your breasts had beenbut we never did such thingsYou hadn’t thought everyonewould look so perfectunmutilatedyou pull onyour blouse again:stern statement:There are things I will not sharewith everyone2.You send me back to sharemy own scarsfirst of allwith myselfWhat did I hide from herwhat have I denied herwhat losses sufferedhow in this ignorant bodydid she hidewaiting for her releasetill uncontrollable light began to pourfrom every wound and sutureand all the sacred openings3.Wartime.We sit on warmweathered, softening grey boardsthe ladder glimmers where you told methe leeches swimI smell the flameof kerosenethe pineboards where we sleep side by sidein narrow cotsthe night-meadow exhalingits darknesscallingchild into womanchild into womanwoman4.Most of our love from the age of ninetook the form of jokes and muteloyalty:you fought a girlwho said she’d knock me downwe did each other’s homeworkwrote letterskept in touch, untouchinglied about our lives:I wearingthe face of the proper marriageyou the face of the independent womanWe cleaved to each other across that spacefingering websof love and estrangementtill the daythe gynecologist touched your breastand found a palpable hardness5 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]