“Mourning Diary,” by Angela Narciso Torres (Poetry ’09)

“Mourning Diary,” a poem by 2009 graduate Angela Narciso Torres, was recently featured in Harpur Palate. Read an excerpt below:

Mourning Diary

   a cento pantoum using lines from Ronald Barthes’s Mourning Diary (FSG, NY, 2010)

Mourning—a cruel country where I’m no longer afraid.
The formal beginning of the long bereavement.
This terrifies me.
I know my mourning will be chaotic.

The formal beginning of the long bereavement.
Eighteen months for a mother, a father.
I know my mourning will be chaotic.
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in.

Eighteen months for a mother, a father.
Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in.
Suffering, like a stone (around my neck, deep inside me).

Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.
This morning—the offer of lightness.
Suffering, like a stone (around my neck, deep inside me).
I ask for nothing but to live in my suffering.

This morning—the offer of lightness.
For the first time, I decide to wear a colored scarf.
I ask for nothing but to live in my suffering.
I limp along through my mourning.

Read the poem in its entirety here: https://harpurpalate.binghamton.edu/issue-19-2-20-1/mourning-diary/