To Be Read in the Interrogative by Julio Cortázar

To Be Read in the Interrogative
Julio Cortázar
Translated by Stephen Kessler

Have you seen
have you truly seen
the snow the stars the felt steps of the breeze
Have you touched
really have you touched
the plate the bread, the face of that woman you love
       so much
Have you lived
like a blow to the head
the flash the gasp the fall the light
Have you known
known in every pore of your skin
how your eyes your hands your sex your soft heart
must be thrown away
must be wept away
must be invented all over again

Para Leer en Forma Interrogativa
Julio Cortázar

Has visto
verdaderamente has visto
la nieve los astros los pasos afelpados de la brisa
Has tocado
de verdad has tocado
el plato el pan las cara de esa mujer que tanto
      amás
Has vivido
como un golpe en la frente
el instante el jadeo la caída la fuga
Has sabido
con cada poro de la piel sabido
que tus ojos tus manos tu sexo tu blando corazón
había que tirarlos
había que llorarlos
había que inventarlos otra vez.

SELECTED BY PATRYCJA HUMIENIK

An excerpt of this poem by Julio Cortázar is the epigraph for my first book, We Contain Landscapes. This poem reminds me to live more fully. To really feel the sensuous ache of getting to love one another and be here at all.

ABOUT PATRYCJA HUMIENIK

Patrycja Humienik is the author of We Contain Landscapes (Tin House, 2025), selected as a New York Public Library Best New Poetry Book. An editor and teaching artist, Patrycja has developed writing and movement workshops for Arts+Literature Laboratory, The Seventh Wave, Northwest Film Forum, Henry Art Gallery, and in prisons. Her work can be found in The New Yorker, Gulf Coast, West Branch, Poetry Daily, Poetry Society of America, The Slowdown Show, and elsewhere.