May noises bore into your teeth like a dentist’s drill, and may your memory be filled with rust, befouled odors, and broken words.
May a spider’s leg grow from each of your pores; may you be able to eat only decks of cards; and may exhaustion reduce you, like a steamroller, to the thickness of your portrait.
When you step into the street, may even the lampposts chase you off with kicks; may an overwhelming compulsion lead you to bow down before garbage pails; and may everyone in the city mistake you for a urinal.
Whenever you try to say “I love you,” may it come out sounding like “fried fish,” and may your own hands try to strangle you every now and then. Instead of your cigarette, may it be you that you toss in the spittoon.
May your wife cheat on you constantly, even with mailboxes; when she lies down beside you, may she turn into a leech; and—after birthing a raven—may she bear you a wrench.
May your family entertain itself by so disfiguring your skeleton that when mirrors see you they kill themselves in disgust; may your only amusement be installing yourself in the waiting rooms of dentists dressed as a crocodile; and may you fall so madly in love with a safe-deposit box that you cannot, even for an instant, resist licking its latch.
Girondo, Oliverio, trans. by Heather Cleary, Poems to Read on a Streetcar. New Directions Books, New York, 2014: 27.
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