It’s my mood that’s ill.
It’s a disorder
because maybe my mother and I were too bonded
inordinately bound
A bond an attachment that was fatal
and the word ‘smoke’ makes me shudder
gives me a stomachache too
As well as the word ‘field’
and the word ‘earth’
Or even ‘plains of earth’
I like the sky so much that I can stay in bed for hours in my Paris apartment
hours just staring at the sky
In New York I have to crick my neck just to see a bit of it
even though I live in Harlem
I have to twist
to see a square
of sky
and even Harlem would do
but also elsewhere
somewhere else
and ‘elsewhere’ too
One day I said to my friend in New York, we’re going to end up killing each other.
One day I said to my best friend in New York, this is going to end in murder.
And so she reproached me for not speaking
She reproached me for how I kept quiet
I tried to say something,
I searched
I tried to say,
but I didn’t find
the words.
And the darker the apartment was, the louder the silence.
On top of that, it was even
more intense.
And my mother kept asking She said that she needed
to put the pieces together back
in the right order She thought she would feel
My mother asked something
She asked She asked
She had to put everything back
together that if she pieced
the whole story
she would be
But this story is missing
better
I don’t remember it anymore
There are some things I prefer to forget
but in what state.
With dead,
joyless
eyes
I search my memory for details
specifics laid
down
:
Mother died today.
My mother died today.
Momma died today.
Mommy died today.
Mom died today.
Maman died today.
Today, Maman died.
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