Alfonsina Storni Alfonsina Storni, listen to me! I don't care that you are a white pearl on the foam. I don't care where a moonbeam hides. Paint yourself red and blue and yellow! Or black like the garden. I won't notice. Why should it bother me that the gifts of Aphrodite have color? And you, Federico Garcia Lorca! Will I care if graveyard ants forget my name? Will I care when slugs hurry by me? Your piles of dogs without life! Bah! It wouldn't bother me if all the dead were forgotten. Listen to me, Nicanor Parra! Let shoes be coffins. Let the sun be Puss 'n' Boots. Change all the names! It doesn't bother me what a word might do to a poet. I care only that if I put my head on the pillow I will drown in a puddle of feathers. I care only that while I sit on my wooden chair I will grow roots of flesh and leaves of bone. I care that I might cheat Physics and stop moving completely. a heavy growing gray has infected my legs like gangrene. Listen to me, all you poets! I cry at night because you each have a grief that outweighs all your sorrows together. But don't think your concerns disturb me. I care that I have lost all concerns. Storni: You who want me white Lorca: Gacela of the Dark Death Lament For Ignacio Sánchez Mejías Parra: Changes of Name