THE GATE
Excerpt XLIV
Then, sleep took over us at dawn amid a whitish and
rosy fog
the face of the tenor dissolved, got distant, reshaped,
the opening of his mouth altered; no sound came out
of it; his tongue was visible, sometimes fat and wide,
sometimes narrow and long; in the bottom the black piano
pendulated in stripes; all around, the drowned people
seemed spiteful that they could hear while we couldn’t;
we, neither humbled nor proud, didn’t claim any
advantages; besides
comparisons were obsolete; softly softened gestures
weightless
however we knew the wrist watches of the drowned men
stopped years ago,
and if they looked at them as if to establish a time or
a musical phrase,
bread crumbs and orange rinds were falling from above
as the housewives shook off the big white table cloths;
by chance a knife shone, hit a piano key, then froze.
Then the unheard voice, the logical: are you upstairs
or downstairs? it asked; You see clearer now or not
at all? Vision is memory, she said, same with hearing;
and knowledge is memory too. If you don’t remember,
it is as you don’t exist; the brotherly dolphin passes with
such a beautiful long lasting movement; its shadow
is outlined on the piano; the forked shadow of its tail
delays on the chords; it touched them; it vibrated them;
sound was heard,
beyond memory; woe, woe, the fifteen plus three; the
heard unheard, who counted?
Up on the surface the woman, with water drops on her feet,
entered holding a big silver tray; aroma of coffee;
A curly purple thread, from the pullover she unravelled
yesterday, was hanging off her dress;
the vegetable sellers had placed their crates outside
on the sidewalk;
the curtain stirs like a vague reminder of what
was postponed.
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Manolis Aligizakis 