Two poems by Alicia Partnoy

Survivor

I carry my rage like a dead fish,
limp and stinking in my arms.
I press it against my breast,
whisper to it,
people on the streets flee from me …
I don't know: is it the smell of death
that makes them flee
or is it the fear
that my body's warmth
might bring rage back to life?


Testimony

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.
I walk up to it,
open my eyes
open
my book
open
my mouth.
That’s right, I open my mouth wide
and begin my story.
They say
I speak too softly,
that I am practically mumbling,
that they can’t hear
the screams piercing.
I open
my memory
like a rotten cantaloupe.

They say
I have not managed
to forcefully convey the pitiless rage
of the cattle prod.
They say that in matters such as this
nothing must be left
open
to the imagination or to doubt.
I take out
the Amnesty report
and begin speaking through that ink.
I urge: “Read.”
I, in my turn, coil around
my bowing accomplice,
this microphone.
I urge action as a prescription,
information as an infallible antidote
and, one every knot is untied,
I recite my verses.
I resist. I am whole.

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.

Activist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Partnoy Alicia Partnoy spent over two years in detention during the Argentinian Dirty War, during which she was beaten, starved and sexually assaulted. Her novel The Little School is based on her experiences.