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Poem-a-day

Wheel of Fortune

translated from the Galego/Spanish by Samantha Schnee

There are women who, upon the bright star 
of each twenty-eighth day,
receive a stream of liquidity in their accounts, 
endometrial or financial,
a blessed
            hemorrhage of cash.

I, on the other hand, have
a costly hypothesis:
each menstrual cycle is one of pointless nostalgia—
a broken necklace of infinitesimal un-births
not this one, or this one, or this other one, or that one …
all those cells waiting just to rush
headlong into dying so easily, 
my embryonic failures, I 
build a nest to curl up close with them
I’m left alone and, softly, I whisper to my ovaries:
Couldn’t you               
                       produce
                                  something more useful?

I swallow a pill
and make haste to desecrate myself.

 


 

A Roda Da Fortuna

 

Hai mulleres que, co luceiro de cada día vinte oito,
báixalles un caudal de liquidez ás súas contas,
endometrio ou salario,
unha bendita
                     hemorraxia de billetes.

A min, porén, píngame
unha gravosa hipótese
—cada ciclo menstrual é unha inútil nostalxia—
ábreseme un colar de diminutos abortos
este non, este tampouco, nin este outro, nin este ...
todos eses xermes facendo quenda para precipitarse
intentando morrer e non lles custa
meus embrionarios fracasos, eu
fago un niño para me recostar con eles
quedo a soas e, en baixiño, besbéllolles aos meus ovarios:
non podedes
                         segregar
                                          algo máis produtivo?

Trago unha pastilla
e corro a abusar de min mesma.

Copyright © 2025 by Yolanda Castaño. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Yolanda Castaño

Yolanda Castaño
Photo credit: Alberto Pombo
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Randall Mann is the Guest Editor of August. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mann about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Gahé Dzíł / Mountain Spirits Crisosto Apache 11/21/2022
Song of the Oktahutche Alexander Posey 11/20/2022
Drifting Olivia Ward Bush-Banks 11/19/2022
Untitled for a Reason Tara Betts 11/18/2022
Tendril Jada Renée Allen 11/17/2022
The White Paws Dara Yen Elerath 11/16/2022
Resistors Brandon Som 11/15/2022
Navajo Mountain Norla Chee 11/14/2022
Man Hesitates but Life Urges D’Arcy McNickle 11/13/2022
Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior Jane Johnston Schoolcraft 11/12/2022

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