New Heart
Federico Garcia Lorca

(1920)

Like a snake, my heart
has shed its skin.
I hold it here in my hand,
full of honey and wounds.

The thoughts that nested
in your folds, where are they now?
Where are the roses that perfumed
both Jesus Christ and Satan?

Poor wrapper that damped
my fantastical star,
parchment gray and mournful
of what I loved once but love no more!

I see fetal sciences in you,
mummified poems and bones
of my romantic secrets
and old innocence.

Shall I hang you on the wall
of my emotional museum, beside my dark, chill,
sleeping irises of evil?

Or shall I spread you over the pines
–suffering book of my love-
so you can learn about the song
that nightangle offers the dawn?

(Translated from Spanish by Catherine Brown)


(Translated from Spanish by Catherine Brown)