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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