I Take Back Everything I've Said by Nicanor Parra

Before I go 
I'm supposed to get a last wish: 
Generous reader 
                        burn this book 
It's not at all what I wanted to say 
Though it was written in blood 
It's not what I wanted to say.

No lot could be sadder than mine 
I was defeated by my own shadow: 
My words took vengeance on me.

Forgive me, reader, good reader 
If I cannot leave you
With a warm embrace, I leave you 
With a forced and sad smile.

Maybe that's all I am 
But listen to my last word: 
I take back everything I've said. 
With the greatest bitterness in the world 
I take back everything I've said.


-- Nicanor Parra, "I Take Back Everything I've Said," trans. Miller Williams, from The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, eds. Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris, Words Without Borders, 2010, pp. 210-11.