Crossroads and Unholy Water

Two Letters

 Two Letters With scissors, she cut herself from the man in the photograph. Just one hand is left and part of his smile. This had been their most beautiful photograph celebrating their wedding engagement. His cheek gently reached for her hair as one approaches white jasmine, hesitant, awed, invited by its scent. Seduced, he had smiled and the photograph seemed to be telling a story other than their life together had taught me. Forty-three years went by between the artifice of photography—love, at a standstill— and the parched fingers, the striated nails, which isolated the woman who glued herself on a page and mailed it to me in a letter. He who wears on his face the missing part of the smile now writes from France: “just came from Deauville, I hurry to tell you, how I thought of your adolescence seeing once more this town, the immense beach, the area more handsome than before, enlarged with taste, Norman architecture preserved, and flowers! Even in this end of October. It was an enchanting promenade, but the weather has been cold and I am lonely. News of Haïti makes me anxious. Nine war ships still besiege my miserable country. I worrywhere am I to go with what’s left of life?!” ...