The Aristocrats

Gabriel Ferrater

Oh Borges, Lowell, oh American
patricians! You have your
history so close, and disgust is alive with you.
History is also close to me. And it nauseates me.
I wouldn't know how to write the detailed poems
you write. Perhaps my disgust
(which has turned old because nobody tells its story),
like the ankles of a Gypsy girl,
will allow me to be skin and alive under the dirt,
but I'm rather grey, and only speaking
of generalizations, like a plebeian
who never heard, fresh and slow,
the memories of the women in the crowded
house, now empty: a well of fear.



 Back to Gabriel Ferrater