The Hours Will Die Slowly

The hours will die slowly
in a silent scream with no earth, no ground.
As if the hollow core of the currents
belonged to the one who watches them drift by,
in a kind of silent prayer.

And if, in the meantime, you fall asleep,
I will be so light
that I shall never weigh on your memory.

In the shadow of the shallow sea’s amalgam,
I shall remain — levitating, pulse already gone —
as the rusted outlines shift and reshape
in the profusion of stars
said to hang by a thread with no colour,
beyond the reach of oblique exorcisms
and curved fatigues.

Isochronically, I await the touch of a blue magic,
a melancholy that memory insisted on capturing.
There is no pain that should burn at the close of day.
Only the perpetuated promise
of a longing — no more than a supposition —
of that deep-sea tenderness that hurts
because neither you nor I know when it will arrive.

Anisochrony.

I turn.

Discreet and concrete.

And turning is the solution
to remain unscathed
by the furtive blow that awaits us.
It is our refusal of universality,
of the imposed definition
sought in vain by the first shape of the question.

But I find neither the sparrow’s flight
nor the jasmine’s kiss
in the search for light without beams.
Only your anchor-like fingers
moored, holding me
to the quay of your disarray.

I take it in, and at once
the storm that was drowning me
calms into waves close
to the vertigo of being inert.