"La Malinche"
From her royal throne
my mother announced: "She is dead"
And then she collapsed,
humbled,
in the arms of the other,
the usurper, my stepfather
who sustained her not
with the respect
a servant owes to the
majesty of a queen
but with the mutual submissiveness
with which lovers, accomplices,
abase themselves.
From the Plaza de los Intercambios
my mother announced: "She
is dead."
The scale
remained immobile for
an instant
the cacao bean reposed
quietly in its chest
the sun stood still in
the sky's zenith
as if awaiting a sign
which was, when it shot
out like an arrow,
the penetrating cry of
the mourners.
"The many-petaled flower
has withered
the perfume has evaporated
the torch's flame extinguished.
A girl returns, scratching
at
the spot where the midwife
left her navel.
She returns to the Place
of Those who have Lived.
She beholds her father,
murdered,
ay, ay, ay, with poison,
with a dagger,
with a trap set before
his feet, with a hangman's noose.
Taken by the hand, she
and they walk, they walk,
losing themselves in the
fog." |
Such was the weeping and
lamentation
over an anonymous corpse;
a cadaver
that was not mine, because
I, sold to
the merchants, went forth
to exile like a slave,
a pariah.
Expelled, cast out from
the kingdom, from the
palace and warmth
of her who gave honest
birth to me
and who despised me because
I was her equal
in figure and rank
she who saw herself in
me and hated her image
and dashed the mirror
to the ground.
I go, in chains, toward
my destiny
and am followed still
by the sounds
of the mournful chants
with which they bury me.
And the voice of my mother
in tears--in tears!--
that decries my death.
En la tierra de en medio |