Continued

Fragile

Fragile I was going to sleep not remembering a thing, just scrunching up on the side of the bed, knowing I should leave room. I began the year washing dishes. The water waswarm, it was nobody's, I didn't have to hurry. Before my eyes stood all the verbs, to be, to write, to love, all tangled up for years. I didn't have to remember anything although the mouth monotonously repeated the word memory, memory, memory as if beyond it nothing meant anything. And without willing it, already on the edge of sleep, I sawyour face again as it was a few hours back, last year, tired, but still beautiful, dark blue like aswallow, almost ravenblack, and the face of a seven-year-old boy, 35 composed and delicate, just about to smile; your black hair brightened against the child's light mop, the mouth kept whispering memory, memory. Drops of sleep ran down the pane of the eye. 36 ...