3 poems by Berta Dávila in translation

I am working on a translation of Berta Dávila's Raíz da fenda. I will post poems here from time to time.

12

Let the brambles grow,
and the misery of tending this house fade away.

Let our dust settle into the carpets,
let the madness remain here forever,
the swoon of being beaten,
the rank breath of guilt.

Let the thorny tangle stay on
long after our retreat.

Because you know that I will be back one day
to pay tribute to these walls
like some pantheon of catastrophe,
to pick blackberries with wounded, road weary hands.

31

It all went wrong
then,

when the mandarines came
ripe in October
and you
weren’t there
to bring the news.

96

The bony core
we throw away
is
the sign
the nucleus
that gives rise to everything.

The flesh in which it’s sunk
is a mere accessory
to the seduction.

                         In praise of the cherry

~Berta Dávila