Summer 2012 - Vol. 9, Issue 3

"Memory Loss"

 

His index finger drawing on the blanket

like a silly schoolboy,

he soon detects ants along the wall and

turns into a traffic warden angry at

transgressing vehicles.

 

His hair scattered in voluntary neglect,

bitter tears poised to explore his cheeks,

he soon turns into a capricious tyrant

who suddenly remembers too many

swear words like ax wound.

 

He watches the same soap opera

three times in a day. At night,

he opens the window

and forgets to close.

His daughters,

he calls for them loudly,

forgetting they are abroad.

 

Talking to me on the phone,

he only asks when I’ll be back

with his cigarettes and rum

and if I ask to talk to my mother,

he lays down the receiver

to look for her

and does not come back.

 

I cannot feel love for him, anymore!

It seems he doesn’t need anyone’s help.

Death has invaded his brave mind.

He has reinvented

his view of the people around and

I am among the stranger she does not trust.

 

 

"Winter Relics"

 

An eye lost

on memories of grandmother,

I lament the sight of the old world map,

smiling at my physical ambivalence.

 

I want sunrays on the frozen druid

stones outside, so that my face

and hers can reflect on them again.

 

Near the fireplace her picture in

a frame every hour used to tell

me everything

about the pregnant past.

 

I cannot coax it into my mind any

more and two half-tarnished, fully-bent spoons,

an empty bed with her silhouette,

 

the oily comb,

(you had such fragrant hair grandmother!)

a pocket knife with blade

dulled from idle scratching,

 

and a death note with brown fingerprints

are what should remain of us.

This is the same knife with which

 

I slashed her old age to show her

her grace but it ultimately cut our bond,

bringing an eternal, dreary winter.

 

I am mentally paralyzed.

 

I am empty and dry now,

a ball-point pen that has lost its horizon,

unable to write your story, grandmother.

 

 

"Woeful Wheelchair"

 

She could not look into the twisted eyes

of the blind beggar I’d become.

She muttered good evening

to my white sleeve.

 

Looking away, she

must have thought of the romantic hand

which would once pitch dandelions

in the pure plain of her heart.

 

What will you drink

she then asked my sparkling serum bottle.

She was told I could not

drink or eat or talk.

 

My wheelchair drifted towards her.

 

She sensed my fingers fumbling for hers

as if I wanted to read some Braille secrets.

She smiled, falsely.

She could still not look into my hopeful eyes.

She said goodnight to

my solemn slippers.

 

As she left in a hurry, it

was dark outside.

Just like inside my burnt heart, broken

visions and the spacious tomb waiting for me.

 

I fainted, killing the promise

of being hers every second of every

minute of every life.