Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
the found fossil does not describe
how my blue eyes look past your eyes
how your black eyes look away from my eyes
how my white forearm does not simply
rest next to your black forearm
how my sleek hair sleeps next to your frizzy hair
the fossil does however describe in the finest vertebrae
how the coast blindingly kept on shouting
after the continent that once was part of her
how the fynbos undisputedly sniffed for her torn-away friends
how the rusted rock along the coast longed for the drifted bloodbrother
but the fossil knows that once everything was linked
that we broached our hearts for one another
only we don’t know
why we now sit with this stoney one-ness
and so much furious aversion
computerised city – programmed underground fine figured power goes its terrible way from your cybernetic memory I want to take back my life and my honour and my name all of it destroyed by the times we live in hear me out: I refuse to witness any longer I refuse your decoding of freedom I want to take my life back from you as well: who does this word serve how do I understand myself in this text-tortured land how untouched do I hover the freedom has already been won in word and grenade it has been taken I hear the sound of a thousand footfalls oh do not ever pass me by
I want another life I want to walk in other streets I want to take a lift in another city and step out on a new floor I want to be in another supermarket I want to take different food from different shelves I want other teeth I want to wear dresses and light-yellow sandals I want to travel along other roads with other mountains in my windows I want another life I want another space that I don’t have to share with you so that I can be in a place where I can again long for you where I need not confuse longing with familiarity I want to miss your mouth I want to imagine your eyes you must be in my head more than in my bed in loved languages I want to call you forth until I come right to you I want another space I want another chance to prove to my children my love for them (and as I write this their faces appear as if on a monitor screen): beloved child I want you to know that your mother is moved by your vulnerable courage that I reel at how deep you invest in love how delicately you deploy your uniqueness your hands and feet the shyness of the back of your head and your beautiful eyes – all of it your mother can recite by heart in the night I want to plead for a new space in which I can say that I love every one of you the most (and if you need me to say that I love you most – then I am saying it here: among all I love you the most my child, just like the others) in which I can say that what you are keeps on astounding me that how you are renders me proud that in my thoughts again and again I embrace you and hold you allow me a space in which my presumptuous anguish my sharp underestimations can disappear in which you can know that nobody could ever love you more liberatingly more impedingly than I please give me another chance L’envoi I want another life in which I can touch unhampered and love imperishably I am tired of the deficit of my hands my pauperising brain and tongue I no longer want I am tired of shifting: from how to stay young to how to stay alive from how to stay alive to how to love from how to love to how love the good I am tired of this lifelong wanting the needing of another life