terça-feira, 31 de março de 2009

Amanda Hammar

Late night city traffic stills at last.
My bare feet press into the worn rug
that holds imprints from childhood.
I was visiting after years, no longer in place there or anywhere. You came to join me
in the dimly-lit room, whisky in hand.

I’ve been faithful to your mother
for fifty-five years of marriage you said,
your gaze looking past me to measure
the weight of so much history.
Even though there were moments . . .
perhaps I kissed someone else once.

As she slept soundly up the hallway,
our voices conspiratorially low,
I tried to reckon with the revelationof
over half a century’s fidelity,
but even more so with your need
to assert this fact of loyalty.

What burden were you hoping to lift,
what price to calculate, what prize to claim.
And why choose me as your witness.
Was it an oblique bid to free me
from my own stubborn devotion
to a love that bore no fruit.

* * *

house
too long abandoned
weeds pushing apart
scarred bricks
beams of weathered wood
exposed like ribs
no longer able to hold in
the soft heartbeat of
home

* * *

a man is lying dead
on a busy street
in carefree cape town
the crumbs of excess
elude him

he is far from home
and alone
an ordinary young man
in want of an ordinary life
or just a piece of bread

and so he eats his own shadow
consumes the last twinkle in his eye
swallows handfuls of poisonous hope

his teeth crack biting the pavement
the world passes by
except those who know
the taste of a shadow
and stop to mourn him

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