39 Nekroun: beatae memoriae

Posted by sarahsmiles on February 24th, 2007 filed in Uncategorized

Shrill awakening cries issue forth unbidden from silent vibrating flesh.
Twisted chords vocalizing desire replete with life’s joy and anguish
in an unknown language, though one sens en matière, familiar and compelling.
Your words from my throat, sweet and savory on my tongue, like cream,
sharp on my teeth like torn flesh, soft on my lips like wild
strawberry in July, familiar, over ripe, pungent in the moist heat.
Thoughts of a single purpose animate my limbs sonambulate, as these words
of another speak to me, speak through me to utter a call for my own ears
to hear that I might know directions and expectations to bring me to you,
to bring you across to me; bain sidhe. The lady of surcease,
merciful handmaid of oblivion, sacred of persephone,
devote of kali, harrowing acolyte of the black mary.

This night my daemon finds you in a small room off the chapel,
brow wet, lips dry, chest shallow, weary of laboring for withered flesh
and exhausted soul emptied of fond reflections; memories lost as
wires and tubes snaked away last vestiges of humanity,
as time forgets youth, dignity and all desires but one.
I come to you, lover, wife, friend, teacher, poet,
seeing all this, as your voice speaks within me.
All that is lost will find a home in my temple archive soul.

I travel for a few days; taxi, train, metro. You called me far.
The Paris suburb, so different from your younger days is full
of familiar sounds and smells to someone from the south,
and I feel at home, as I walk in the twilight, tracing in my mind
the path stolen from your memories, to the hospital chapel gardens.
In the garden, deep in the dusk, I see a sister who has heard the call
arriving in case I do not, hoping, from her eyes to see me, if I do.

Silently our hands clasp and we kiss cheeks, no word on nights like this
for greetings, only for farewells; we say nothing, as finger to lips
I gesture for my sister to wait, or join me as she may wish.
As I ignore her for now, there will be time later to aquaint–
though we are sisters by calling only we have never met.
She stands wide and solid, dark skin and shining black hair
Blue Nile. Eretrian-Italian perhaps. War-child mother perhaps.
But my mind is elsewhere, on the voice in my head and a path
way unnoticed… when death walks by all minds shudder
and turn to anything for distraction.

The nurses know us and some even look up as we pass, and I smile.
No one can ever remember the face of we sisters passing. Handy.
Hand in hand we trace the path in my head, following now a single scent
that calls to me amon all others in the night. And there you finally are
at the end of the small ward, each bed veiled. Each occupant awaiting
her own visitor. In time. Each in time. We are ignored as we should be.
The curtains parting to reveal your sleeping form, and a man asleep
in the chair bedside. His hand in yours. My sister’s eyes meet mine
and we watch you two. Almost identical with age and proximity.
Not sibblings, I see young lovers in my mind. I see war and distance
and reunion. Above all, I see love. And we both smile for love.

Tinged with a blush of shame and polite regrets, I am here to break a bond
of many decades. Pax vobiscum. A kiss on withered sleeping lips.
A sharp intake of breath, and a sigh as I bring your last breath
unto me, stealing your spark of life for me to help me set you free.

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