Woman Seated, Not Knowing
Does this happen at sea and in the cold?
Is the cold hard and built of bricks?
Is woman made of a substance like chocolates?
In his spongy memory, does he eat his child who dies?
Destiny, destiny!
Neither my mother nor my aunt at death’s door, departed before reaching
their 70s,
corroded by years,
would know that their children would die so soon
climbing stairs of shredded paper, bleeding everywhere but ruining nothing.
They would climb to clouds strategically placed,
prisms in the cold light of that bitten host.
Under the black sky, white rocks gleam in their dry creek bed,
placed by a wild impulse that just days ago could be found in the faithful
water
nerve and life. Crickets and frogs sing: The speed of those voices
breaks now against the wall with fate behind it.
With a closed mouth, on foot, with your body present,
we see the supposed sky where we will exist.
Is the cold hard and built of bricks?
Is woman made of a substance like chocolates?
In his spongy memory, does he eat his child who dies?
Destiny, destiny!
Neither my mother nor my aunt at death’s door, departed before reaching
their 70s,
corroded by years,
would know that their children would die so soon
climbing stairs of shredded paper, bleeding everywhere but ruining nothing.
They would climb to clouds strategically placed,
prisms in the cold light of that bitten host.
Under the black sky, white rocks gleam in their dry creek bed,
placed by a wild impulse that just days ago could be found in the faithful
water
nerve and life. Crickets and frogs sing: The speed of those voices
breaks now against the wall with fate behind it.
With a closed mouth, on foot, with your body present,
we see the supposed sky where we will exist.
The Sentence
When you find the interview with Duras, note:
The sentence takes what power it can from words.
Such is life. Details dig directly
into the bones. They are not the same woman, but they are. Fate
cut corners, until all that remained was confined to a few faces. Their
routines are holy and horticultural; they’re rustic and peaceful. They
kill and vivify. Maybe they no longer exist. My friend took those
photos a few years ago and from that height in life, the force of
disappearance is relentless.
I told you, the sentence takes snapshots and shows compassion for
the more or less ill-fated details. And out of compassion, it avoids big
words and sticks to saying what it has to say. Now, clearly, I’m
thinking about Pedro. About how my grandmother adored him. How
they number among the few dead bodies I have seen, the bodies of
Luz and Pedro.
Those were also the most devastating funerals
I’ve ever attended, naturally, because in life they were blue and sharp
as tacks.
They were keen to details, numbers,
facts that don’t usually stick with people. They were discussing
how one assembles an idea. Two generations apart, in opposite
styles, they deliberated on this overarching theme.
When I saw their bodies after thirty years, I saw my mistake
in having seen them. They were reduced to unsaid sentences, they
were two wax dolls, with no resemblance
to the people they had been. Their souls were inside me more
than inside themselves. My mental photographs gave me a shove,
and I have been falling and I know that it is because of them.
There are no more pieces to break me into.
I am like a sentence that lists their words.
I’ve spent the last few months in total absurdity. I have to speak
the whole sentence when I wake, no thought to its parts,
and speak it precisely then, at dawn,
to keep what is theirs alive, in my life.
The sentence takes what power it can from words.
Such is life. Details dig directly
into the bones. They are not the same woman, but they are. Fate
cut corners, until all that remained was confined to a few faces. Their
routines are holy and horticultural; they’re rustic and peaceful. They
kill and vivify. Maybe they no longer exist. My friend took those
photos a few years ago and from that height in life, the force of
disappearance is relentless.
I told you, the sentence takes snapshots and shows compassion for
the more or less ill-fated details. And out of compassion, it avoids big
words and sticks to saying what it has to say. Now, clearly, I’m
thinking about Pedro. About how my grandmother adored him. How
they number among the few dead bodies I have seen, the bodies of
Luz and Pedro.
Those were also the most devastating funerals
I’ve ever attended, naturally, because in life they were blue and sharp
as tacks.
They were keen to details, numbers,
facts that don’t usually stick with people. They were discussing
how one assembles an idea. Two generations apart, in opposite
styles, they deliberated on this overarching theme.
When I saw their bodies after thirty years, I saw my mistake
in having seen them. They were reduced to unsaid sentences, they
were two wax dolls, with no resemblance
to the people they had been. Their souls were inside me more
than inside themselves. My mental photographs gave me a shove,
and I have been falling and I know that it is because of them.
There are no more pieces to break me into.
I am like a sentence that lists their words.
I’ve spent the last few months in total absurdity. I have to speak
the whole sentence when I wake, no thought to its parts,
and speak it precisely then, at dawn,
to keep what is theirs alive, in my life.
Watering the Geraniums in the Window
She had a miniature horse that she rode furiously
through her kitchen. They lived together, naturally,
but they were practically enemies.
The horse remembered everything,
even the first words
she spoke when she still believed he was a toy.
Too much time has passed,
so much that the important letters
have burned.
Won’t this be resolved in our lifetimes?
Won’t something be restored by breaking into tears over the flowers?
through her kitchen. They lived together, naturally,
but they were practically enemies.
The horse remembered everything,
even the first words
she spoke when she still believed he was a toy.
Too much time has passed,
so much that the important letters
have burned.
Won’t this be resolved in our lifetimes?
Won’t something be restored by breaking into tears over the flowers?
