:: Danny Rivera
Speaking in Unwritten Tongues
I.
Nothing changes except the way the two of us communicate, which is to say that I no longer leave the windows open.
If I need some named thing (previously described and decorated with threats of white string), a blank index card is placed on the table set against the apartment´s northernmost wall, which sets off the charge that air is escaping from my room faster than it can be replaced. At such times, I am made to await a response, as she tends to complain of suffering from extreme sensitivity to light (It is never at the right temperature; can´t you see that?), and to the misshapen forms that imprint themselves over her remaining canthus, elongated torso, and slight belly. It has not always been this way. There have been other signals, other bursts of embers and torque, by which to confirm our most intimate defeats, but we have long lost the patience to test theorems, algorithms, and formulas, weakened as they become after heavy use.
II.
I can hear her breathing, through the pores of these walls, collect over a bed covered with layers of rail tickets and waiting reminders; broadsides stained with the color of fog; dress forms, baseborn, aligned next to each other (how piercingly mute and precise, their mouths); a photograph depicting a mourner, under the remaining wave, at the baptismal font; the second record of her shedding; statues in miniature performing pirouettes for unclaimed audiences; plans with which to construct bridges (consider the depths, out of view), thrones, and minor elevations marked by graphite and oil; and, through all, the taped sliver of infancy shredded by nails. (She is speaking in an undisturbed tongue, guarded by the chrysalis of sleep, that will be deciphered by clerics cleared to live in time´s collapse. Her voice is a graying leaf that resembles a mistral: it cuts a path to the ringing heat of my body, a body cast in disappointment, yet settled by the comfort that only the reach of sight will provide.)
III.
In lands with irregular borders,
a caravan of misplaced
children.
She has mothered them all, and the test to dismantle conclusions. The ring she once offered is now showing signs of distress; the discoloration around its thinnest edge, a confession.
IV.
She responds with matter and devastation.
© Danny Rivera 2006