Something Might Have Happened
Around the ninth of July
I was no longer able to tell what’s real.
I told them that I didn’t know what had happened.
Something might have happened but I don’t remember.
And what I do remember is blurred.
Fragments of rather common things:
A rope, muddy water, tangled time.
When they pushed the wardrobe aside,
A door appeared:
It did not close properly, made of metal, warped at the bottom.
When they took off my handcuffs,
I realized,
That the pictures stuck to the bottom of the drawer
Have not been left there by me. The handwriting was not mine.
Amateur footage, a diary
My own memories too
Could have been faked.
When I turned around,
Men in uniforms were no longer there
In the dark room she was standing
Looking at me through my eyes.
Have I done anything wrong?
Have they done anything wrong to me?
At the end of the corridor
There it was, hanging low
Seven times a mirror.
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Mária FerenčuhováMária Ferenčuhová, a poet, translator, and film scholar. She is an associate professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She published several books, including the scientific monograph called Delayed Time. Film Sources, Historiography, Documentary Film (2009) and collection of poetry Endangered Species (2012). Her poem Something Might Have Happened was inspired by the documentary Normalization (2013) by Robert Kirchhoff. |
Translated into English by Bára Rozkošná.
