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To my Friend from Peru

                     Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

                                  mi ritrovai per una selva oscura ....

                                                                Dante.  Inferno

 

I. 

At forty, you plunged into

         your own

not in a dream or a vision,

   your heart refused 

       to mark time.

A stranger's lips pressed yours, 

         instilling 

warmth until your body awoke.

 

It has been four months 

     now, Margarita.  

You have not said a word, 

lost in a thick fog, in a world

        unknown, 

  only your eyes move, 

          faster

    when we talk.

 

December has come, its snow, 

          indifferent   

 like your hospital bed

set in a room where two

     lovers' breaths 

once steamed tall window panes.

 

In the darkness, he sleeps 

     with your absence,

in search for a sign, losing, 

night after night, the memory 

          of light.

 His mind wanders, following 

    a shadow, a footstep.

 

Arms, hands, never the same, 

       hold you, rub 

your skin, try to strike 

notes from a mute piano.  

Voices, 

fading in dense brume, beg 

        you come back.

 

Fingers open cabinets,

sort out papers, pictures,

       disturb your dust, 

caress 

    your children's hair. 

The same moan greets them 

mouth agape, eyes restless.

 

Yesterday, I read aloud Lorca's

       poem to you. 

The one you loved,

"Romance sonámbulo"

     Two lovers,

unable to reunite, a green, 

       silvery night 

shrouds their tragic end.

 

I could hear you say: 

"Verde que te quiero verde.

 Verde viento. Verdes ramas."

My voice weakened with the

      last words:

"El barco sobre la mar

Y el caballo en la montaña."  

 

Suddenly you were sobbing, 

     sobbing and crying,

         Margarita.

"Did she understand?"

I asked.  The nurse replied:

    "It's hard to say.

She cried a lot today."  

••¶

 

II.

Three years have gone by,

Margarita, 

your sighs, unsettling,

mist of invisible signs,

inaudible fragments 

of a broken mosaic.

And your skin so smooth,

your hair, growing

as wild vines in the rain,

its rising sap 

resists the twist 

of the brush.

 

The nurse straightens

your back, holds 

the comb, passes                

the scissors.

The biting crisscross

of sharp shears. I trim,

curling docile locks   

around my fingers.

 

Uneasy, we talk,           

hands, fingers, 

stroking your arms, 

your back, 

long, soft bristles 

flown all over,

down to your waist. 

 

The round brush swells,

in hot lustrous waves.

I think of my mother,

how she hid her eyes 

with both palms

when I’d style her hair,

how she complained "it burns," 

"stop pulling. . .

my roots are so tender."

•¶••¶

¶••  

 

III.

A stranger in your 

own home,

wrapped in diapers,

fed by a tube,

you don’t hear 

the doorbell 

when your daily portion

of sterilized food 

arrives, packed

in cardboard boxes.

 

A mute presence, 

you rest on a wheelchair

in a corner 

of the family room.

Your eyes stare

at the ceiling while plans 

are made to take you 

back to Peru,

 

to the deep violet-blue sky 

you once knew.

“When the kids grow up, 

they might study in Lima,” 

you’d often say.

Now your gray is showing.

We’re thinking of color

if all agree. 

 

A nurse rubs your limbs, 

kneads, folds, 

unfolds, 

hoping to revive

a nerve, a muscle,

arms, legs, hardening 

into branches, 

misshapen, unearthed roots.

 

Back home,

unable to read

for days, 

the smell of you

clouding every page. 

Time after time, 

we’d stop pretending

you’d understand,

repeating motions 

like automatons.

 

Now you’re back to Peru, 

your birthplace, 

where your elders once lived 

with their dead, 

honoring their remains. 

There, your young heart 

keeps beating.

••¶

•¶••¶  ¶••