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Your
Name
by Marguerite Yourcenar
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translated
by Janine Canan
Your
name, that was given to you by your mother.
Your
name, that was poured down my bitter throat
like
a drop of poisoned honey.
Your
name, that I cried under every sky
and
wept in every bed.
Your
name, that I read in the water-marks
on
every page of my misery.
Your
name, clear as the tear-drop
that
was shed on us by one of the Angels.
Your
name, like a beautiful naked child who rolled in the
mud.
Your
name, that bruises my mouth.
Your
name, with which I sleep like a talisman.
Your
name, like the sentence which condemns me to
banishment.
Your
name, that I moan like a beggar continuing her
lamentations
even
at the gates of a city in flames.
Your
name, where so many sordid stories perch like flies.
Your
name, that people speak as if it were anyone's.
Your
name, X for the unknown that is your self.
Your
name of baptism, inscribed in the black register
of
the Devil and in the golden book of God.
Your
name, that nothing could ever make me forget.
Your
name, with your memory, the only thing you can never
take
from me, since anyone under blue heaven may say it.
Your
name, whose every letter is a nail in my agony.
Your
name, the only one I'll remember on Resurrection
morning.
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