Butterflies

Written by Vilma Tapia Anaya

Translated from the Spanish by the Poet

Narrated by Kristine Doll

Bolivia

 

 The day is here

a white butterfly and a yellow one

come out of the rock

garden watering releases them

 

Last night the body of a woman was found

she took poison and a glass of wine

left another served

 

She tried to put on the dress from a past dance

too small for her now

 

Neither the embroidered fabric

nor the wings of the tulle embraced her back

 

Last night’s moon and her cry are here

Vilma Tapia Anaya is a Bolivian poet and writer. She lives in Cochabamba and she is a professor at the Universidad Católica Boliviana in the Faculty of Theology. These poems belong to Lentitud, a recently published book.

Kristine Doll is a poet and translator (English/Spanish/Catalan).  She teaches at Salem State University in Salem MA.  Her work has been published domestically and internationally in such venues as Asymptote, The Seventh Quarry, Cross-Cultural Communications Art & Poetry Broadside Series, The Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Loch Raven Review, and Immagine & poesia.  Her most recent translation from English into Spanish is the book of aphorisms written by Carolyn Kleefeld, Soul Seeds/Semillas del alma (Cross-Cultural Communications and Edicions Saldonar, 2021).