When you are gone, I don’t know where I am.
The house empties.
The curtains flutter outside the windows.
Keys on the table.
On the floor, an open suitcase from past travels,
with the strange costumes
of a theatre troupe that once triumphed, but then fell apart;
the beautiful leading lady took her life one night on stage.
When you are gone,
soldiers run through the streets; women scream;
the heavy artillery echoes; the sirens wail;
ambulances pass by, stop;
nurses in white gather the wounded from the asphalt,
they take me too,
transport me to a snow-white hospital, with no beds;
I close my eyes like a child
surrounded by a dangerous kind of whiteness.
A nurse
is still in the garden, beside the fountain;
she bends to collect some white flowers
the wind has blown from the acacia trees. And then—
the door opens;
you come in with a basket; —the scent of ripe pears drifts in.
“Asleep?” your voice says. “Asleep alone? Weren’t you waiting for me?”
I open my eyes. And there is the house. And here I am.
The two armchairs.
Red armchairs. And the matches on the table.
Oh white light; oh red blood, oh love, love.
