Memory of dignity (Memoria de la dignidad)

From my Dad’s book Urgent Poetry (Poesía de urgencia).

Memory of dignity (Memoria de la dignidad)

She used to remember childhood days.

Siblings, parents, friends,

and the paternal house and the alleyways

of the town, and the school

at fourteen years of age

and the final surrender according to her own dreams,

and the distance and then the loneliness,

at fifteen years of age

with a flesh and bone doll and life in her arms,

and what came later and the hope

of pretending and recovering

so many small things and others

like the dignity that one day she had

in her housewife’s hands

with powers and duties and authority

and the right to raise her voice

to ask for respect in this home

that is a home and is “also my battle

of today, of yesterday and perhaps of tomorrow.”

It used to upset me not wanting to see her

except for with my senses and ignoring her

in her rush of pursued female

searching for the lost dignity

that she used to feel that she could find again

on the shadow

of an impossibly inhospitable love.