I will stay there
Fossilized
The diaspora in my kitchen
My toes like caterpillars curled over the cold tile floor
Chalky tea, bag stuck against the side.
A woman ageing. Ageing gracefully.
An ageing fig.
Thinking no more.

An uninhabited shell.
Being a smile that smiles no more, a limp hand, drooping shoulders.
Thinking no more
Thinking no more
Thinking no more
Being a block of clay that is not sculpted
A song that is no longer hummed.  
Being a heart that is grilled
Nothing more.
A barbecue skewer
A lamb roasted on a spit.

I will be a mystery.
A slipknot , a drumhead slashed to ribbons.
I will be anger. A wriggling fruit peel.
I will be a pack of clichés.
I will be on vacation.
I will be a plump teapot, a leaky pen, a stray dog.
I will be sweater threadbare at the elbows, a rickety chair
a torn love letter
A tree without sap.

Being incomprehension, triteness, idiocy.
Hunting down common sense, burying it in the yard.

Eyelids shut tight. Mouth closed.
Being a stone, a rock.
A piece of plaster that comes unstuck.
Thinking no more
Thinking no more
Thinking no more

On every sheet of paper, a name.
A name and a story.
Creating a mausoleum.

I will be seaweed
Dancing in the watery depths
A fish with silver scales, a whelk, some coral
In the deafening silence of the world
Being an epitaph
A prayer.

Digging through the sludge
Burying the voices. Let them lurk in the mire.
The drool, the throats being cleared, the whistling of plugged noses
The scratching, the scraping of fingernails
The clicking of keys.
The forced laughter
The voices. All of them.
Other than the ones that are singing.
Drowning out the noise.
The rumours, the hearsay.
Thinking no more.
Being merely a small part of a larger whole.

Dust returns to dust
Of gold that glitters.
And feeling contented.

Learning no more
Loving no more
Forgetting.

Becoming a velvety burrow, a nest.
Being inhabited by others.
A cry.
Spewed pigments. Organic.
Floating.

I will be your mother.
A mother.
Among those who are mothers no more.
Beginning to think again
In spite of myself
Struggling. Doubting. Losing myself.
And having every right.

Mother of a cry.
Perfect, round.
A certitude

I will be a seed, a tree.
Swinging. Slowly.
Like a hanged man’s noose.

A conductor at rest
My body functions
Saying thank you, then repeating it.

Being part of the silence.
Becoming silence.

I will be my legs that spread, my stomach that stretches
I will be my eyes that observe, my lungs that fill with breath.

Getting lost in the depths
Rejoicing in the colours.
I will be the now.

Translated by Arielle Aaronson