…………………(La chatte métamorphosée en femme)
Patricia Fargnoli
It was not happiness that came over her body
as you may have thought, but puzzlement
at the gradual elongation of trunk, the narrowing
into a waist, thinning of white fur until what
was left gave her face a peaked appearance,
like on stunned by a ghost. But it was only the ghost
of herself she saw in the hall mirror as she slipped
the red blouse over her new breasts, stepped
into the red skirt that covered pubic mound
and spreading hips. How awkward she was
in this unwanted body. She sat on the Victorian
chair at the small pie crust-table,
her eyes red-rimmed, empty,
immeasurably sad, as she stared at us.
She leaned forward a bit on her arms.
She didn’t know what else to do with them.
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Based on one of Marc Chagall’s gouaches of La Fontaine’s fables, from Small Songs of Pain, reprinted with the author’s permission.
