Curious²⁵

When I show you
what I’ve hid
in my secret place²⁶ 
woven of stories
I get a rush²⁷ 
of nostalgia
together with
a curious twinge²⁸ 
of sadness
to see that my joys
never talk about you²⁹ 

²⁵ Curious is the last of many ideas I had for the title of this poem since the Spanish title, No sé qué, literally means “I don’t know what.” But the way the phrase operates in the poem, the sense of it is “a feeling like I don’t know,” and it leaves the reader with a feeling of wanting to know, which is  weird, strange and uncanny, all rolled into one. So the unknowable title became Curious. And it works, but it sure would be nice to have a je ne sais quoi in our English lexicon.
²⁶ I went for a figurative read of agujero because ‘secret place’ works better in English, I think, than the literal ‘hole.’ I don’t know, maybe it’s a generational thing. When I think of Hole, I think of Courtney Love and punk music. Maybe that would be okay, and maybe I’m wrong, but ya gotta take your chances and make your choices.
²⁷ This is one of the places where the expression “un no sé qué” appeared, but in this instance I did not use curious. It seemed better to say a rush (of nostalgia), because it’s more economic and probably more expressive of what it feels like to be overcome when unearthing a piece of history from a secret place.
²⁸ Here with un no sé qué de pena, the phrase ‘a curious twinge of sadness’ works well.
²⁹ ‘Never talk about you’ is the more elegant phrase, as compared with Don’t talk about you. This elegant poem embodies a mystery with intensity and sadness.  The economy of the language and emotion are typical of many poems from Cuerpos Celestes. 

No sé qué

Cuando te muestro
lo que escondí
en el agujero
tejido de historia
me da un no sé qué
de nostalgia
y otro
no sé qué
de pena
al ver que las alegrías
no hablan de ti