Vuelvo a Mayo de 1937
Los veo parados en los portones de sus universidades.
Veo a mi padre saliendo bajo el arco de arenisca ocre,
las tejas rojas brillando como platos doblados de sangre tras su cabeza.
Veo a mi madre con libros ligeros en su cadera,
parada en la columna de ladrillos con los portones de hierro forjado,
aún abiertos detras de ella, con las puntas de espada.
Están a punto de casarse.
Son niños. Son tontos.
Sólo saben que son inocentes y que jamás lastimarían a nadie.
Quiero ir y decirles que no lo hagan.
Que ella es la mujer equivocada, que él es el hombre equivocado.
Que harán cosas que ni se imaginan.
Que le harán daño a los niños.
Que sufrirán de forma inimaginable.
Que van a querer morirse.
Quiero ir y decírselos en la luz de Mayo.
Pero no lo hago.
Quiero vivir.
Los tomo como muñecos de papel,
y los froto uno contra el otro por las caderas como pedernal,
como si quisiera sacarles chispas.
Y digo: Hagan lo que van a hacer, que yo lo contaré
I go back to May 1937
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.
Sharon Olds
The Gold Cell, 1987
The Gold Cell, 1987
