RUINED HOMES

In the wastebasket, I saw locks of hair

you'd brushed while the birds and the world were waking.

In the mirror, I saw a look

and in that look a lot of homes and skies.

I saw you going towards cities nonexistent in history books

and the bed parting itself into night and day while you were gone,

the day becoming night, and the night a hiding place.

I don't have a sun

in my eyes, nor plants in my upturned palms.

I will bend the bars that protect gardens

from night travelers. I will cover the day

with the silk scarf from your neck,

with the still flag of the territories that have witnessed our presence.

Our email letters cannot fade,

our addresses remain the same even when we run away from here,

from ourselves, from the wideness of our ancient dependence.

I saw someone else writing our names

on walls of fortresses and snow-covered basilicas.

I saw your shadow, too, climbing up my body

as you were climbing down the discovered shelters

after all the official wars.

Since then, every piece of glass blinds me,

every rejected word covers my eyes with silence. I saw.

Our ruined homes were a move of the world,

of the memory, of the memory.