salto del ciervo

Salto del Ciervo / Sharon Olds / Traducción de Natalia Leiderman y Patricio Foglia
these days
/Blood, tin, straw, 1999.
Whenever I see large breasts
on a small woman, these days, my mouth
drops open, slightly.
If she’s walking down the street, toward me,
it’s a little painful to let her pass,
once, I heard myself, very quietly,
moan. And on the train, that time--
she couldn’t have been much more than twenty,
tall and willowy-- the motion of the train
jiggled her mammae steadily
like two panfuls of water, I watched them
slosh in their tight skins, and a great
sadness came over me. I am so
tired, and thirsty. I want to suck
sweet, lacteal heat, with the savory
silk of the human woman along
my cheek. I want to be a baby,
I want to be small and naked, or with
a dry diaper, in fond arms
with the nipple in my mouth-- to work it, gently,
in its lax, nursing state with my gums--
I do not want teeth, not even the day
stars of teeth-to-be , I want
to be soft bone, bendable,
a creature who has come out of the womb
maybe not days before,
but a couple of weeks, I want to be a capable baby,
conscious of bliss, of the nourishment
streaming out of the breast like the music
of the spheres. And I don’t
want it to be
my mother. I want to start over.
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