At Least
The statues, he said, die if you don’t look at them.
I’ve seen them numerous times fall with half-closed eyes.
They wait to see if anyone can look at them; they get up
again. Perhaps for this reason stores in the central
streets, inside and outside, or the neighbourhood tiny shops
are full of small, large, and any size mirrors. Hanging off
the walls, they vaguely shine, as if indifferently, in secret
anticipation: they mirror the bakery chimney, one loquat
tree, two women, and the cart of the small flower shop with
the empty clay flowerpots.
Late in the evening, around eight o’clock, when the stores
close, the mirrors empty at once. Each of them, clerk or
store owner, or customer, takes one mirror and gets into
his room while out in the streets, the windless vigil already
thickens.
