The day I forget how to spell my name will be like a violin playing
a violinist—somewhat unexpected, but not overly dramatic, calm even,
except, I guess, it’s better to embrace the little drama of the present
with backaches and cooking dinner for one while listening to Lisa’s song
played in a loop and leave the whole spelling affair as it comes
to a letter cutter.
Do you remember that feeling
when you finally find out what the melody is
that has been haunting you for months,
after you’ve heard it just once by chance,
only to be played all of a sudden
by the violas and cellos—an ostinato
carved into the black vinyl—as a farewell
to the kind of reserved innocence
you often only begin to savour
when it’s already too late? I do.
If only you had realised then
that you could survive on a single act
of desperation.
A day never lasts past midnight,
and sure, you can always say a new one has just arrived,
but what if the previous one didn’t have a chance to toll its end,
neither moving forward nor melting away like a stuck celluloid frame,
and—though you might have bid it farewell by closing the curtains,
expecting nothing but a clean slate, even if a few occasional scratches
marked the coming morning—it turned into a galling tinnitus
amidst the cries of a peacock? Would you rather ignore it
or reveal its unseemly secrets?
It must have been something important
that, as a reporter on duty, I was on a bus
to visit some family in trouble,
and yet I can’t recall what it was.
All I remember is that when I arrived,
the planes had already crashed into the Twin Towers,
and instead of talking, we sat in silence
in front of the TV in their living room.
Then the editor called my mobile to come back
to the newsroom immediately, and that was it.
Their faces, names, and even the name of the town
have long since faded from my memory.
I don’t know if anyone got back to them eventually
to help with whatever it was that troubled them.
I guess, in a sense, they were victims too,
even if all they could ever get
was this feeble memorial.
hidden pilcrow 