I Knocked My Head against the Wall

As a child

I put my finger in the fire

to become

a saint.

As a teenager

every day I would knock my head against the wall.

As a young girl

I went out through a window of a garret

to the roof

in order to jump.

As a woman

I had lice all over my body.

They cracked when I was ironing my sweater.

I waited sixty minutes

to be executed.

I was hungry for six years.

Then I bore a child,

they were carving me

without putting me to sleep.

Then a thunderbolt killed me

three times and I had to rise from the dead three times

without anyone’s help.

Now I am resting

after three resurrections.

Copyright Credit: Anna Swir, “I Knocked My Head against the Wall” from Talking to My Body, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. Copyright © 1996 by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Talking to My Body (1996)