GACELAS

VI
Gacela of the Bitter Root

There’s a bitter root
and a world of a thousand terraces.

Not even the smallest hand
shatters the gate of waters.

Where are you going, where, where?
There’s a sky of a thousand windows
—a battle of bruised bees—
and there’s a bitter root.

Bitter.

Sore on the sole of the foot,
on the inside of the face,
and sore in the cool trunk
of the freshly cut night.

Love, my enemy,
bite on your bitter root!

Federico García Lorca Translation by A. S. Kline