Copihue Poetry

Yeny Díaz Wentén, translated by Jessica Sequeira

Little Rest

Those absurd little garden cemeteries offend me
with their never-fading flowers,
as if life always had those tones.
I prefer the claws of old graves with eerie shadows,
or the beauty of dry flowers
in their cracked, mournful vases.
Gravestones kept too neat,
as if death were transparent and less dense,
rob significance from my broom and soap,
brought to scrub clean the family tomb.