Centre for Romanian Studies

At birth
I appeared
Already oppressed in an air cage..
How amazing, what riot of colours
A stupefied godmother!
Compassion drowned in tears
She had an indelible pen
And on her lips offered on credit
Hung a suspended smile
She gratified me with a scribbled digit
Which she marked, in consolation, on my back:
Girl, two kilos, odd number: thirty-nine
Strangled by the umbilical chord
Survival chance 26%, epidermal eruption
Talking to herself.’

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Note:
Rodica Draghincescu (b. 1962) – Poet
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Translated from French by Constantin ROMAN, 2003)

Read more about Rodica Draghincescu in:

Blouse Roumaine – The Unsung Voices of Romanian Women

(Centre for Romanian Studies, London, 2009)

(1,100 pages, 160 Biographies, 600 quotations)

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/buy-the-book/index.html