Elina Wechsler – Lilith, Adam’s First Partner – translated by Carlie Hoffman


A kind of obsession with the family tree,
to the dead,
an invitation to spiral
down the Mouth of the Centuries.
Like a disdainful toad on the riverbank,
like a magnet leading me to your body, your ear.
If Eve wasn’t the first
what confusion of the word,
what a blunder in the power of the hieroglyph.
A kind of fixation,
Gioconda peering into infinity.
A mother for all mothers,
Eve will steal Lilith’s temptations,
her own,
because of a small biblical error.

 

 

LILITH, PRIMERA COMPAÑERA DE ADÁN

Una suerte de fijeza al árbol genealógico,
a los muertos,
invita en ocasiones a perderse
en la Boca de los Siglos.
Como un sapo irreverente a la orilla del río,
como el imán que me lleva a tu cuerpo y a tu oído.
Si Eva no fue la primera
qué desorden de la letra,
qué traspié en el poder del jeroglífico.
Una suerte de fijeza,
Gioconda mirando al infinito.
Una madre será por todas las madres,
Eva robará las tentaciones de Lilith,
las suyas,
por un pequeño error bíblico.

Elina Wechsler is an Argentinean poet. Born in Buenos Aires, she was a psychoanalyst by profession. She left Argentina in 1977 as a consequence of the military dictatorship that unleashed extreme political repression and violence and took up residence in Madrid. Wechsler is the author of four collections of poetry: El fantasma (1983), La larga marcha (1988), Mitomanías amorosas (1991), and Progresiones en un cierto mes de julio (1995).

Carlie Hoffman is the author of When There Was Light (Four Way Books, 2023) and This Alaska (Four Way Books, 2021), winner of the NCPA Gold Award in poetry and a finalist for the Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award. A poet and translator, her honors include a “Discovery” / Boston Review prize and a Poet’s & Writers Amy Award. Carlie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Small Orange Journal.