Natalia Litvinova: She-Dog

He wrote to tell me his dog had died.

I wanted to be her, I wanted him to cry for me, to hug me.

I fall. I stretch my legs. The detachment of the spirit

is like a sedative.

Life slips away in a succession of images.

Streets. Nights. The danger of passing cars.

Before dying, the stars give out their last glitter

to the puddles.

Tr. Daniela Camozzi. Litvinova was born in Belarus in 1986; she's lived in Argentina since she was 10, and writes in Spanish. The translation may be too earthbound to transmit the puzzlement of a woman trying to work through her (inter?) dependence on a male.