The Disappeared
translated from the Spanish by Rosa Alcalá
To bear another, to be a pair
To be torn apart
I heard it said,
“Evil was invented
to give us something
to talk about”
But how to speak
if each syllable
falls into the sea
The m of mother
drifting away
other, other
where have you gone?
The f of father
sinking further down
ather, ather
where have you gone?
They didn’t fall
They were thrown
to leave us
without speech
to drown our words.
Los desaparecidos
par han sido
Oí decir
“el mal se inventó
para tener de qué hablar”
Pero cómo hablar
si las sílabas
caen al mar?
La m de madre
se va
adre, adre
¿dónde estás?
La p de padre
se hunde un poco más allá
adre, adre
¿dónde estás?
Los lanzaron
de adré
dejándonos sin hablar.
Copyright © 2021 by Cecilia Vicuña and Rosa Alcalá. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 15, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
“In the early 70s, after the military coup in Chile, people were arbitrarily detained and disappeared. One of my uncles, a surgeon, disappeared in Santiago, so my heart was full of pain. The poem is focused on the effect of disappearing people on language, the fact that removing them forcefully without ever acknowledging they had been kidnapped felt like removing syllables and consonants from a phrase. To destroy the social fabric was to destroy our ability to speak the truth of our pain.”
—Cecilia Vicuña
Cecilia Vicuña
