[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]
BY RUI CARLOS DA CUNHA
What is the death of the other to me
However overwhelmed with emotion
As their presence is my despair, I weep
To imagine their imminent absence
In this life, I have naught but emptiness
Still, as I am simply human, I feel
The memories remain but fade slowly
Haunted landscapes, I walk with ghosts long past
Egocentric tomfoolery, pretend
Death has no hold over my emotions
Emerging as fountains of tears, two streams
Answer my prayers as a broken golem
This shapeless-mass of clay enters my dreams
Holds me hostage in the ocean, a pool
Overlooking nothing but emptiness
Forms in my mind, filled with mussels and clams
Tortured by my own imagination
Hovering over nothingness, the sea
Endless wasteland of floating detritus
Objectified as a woman, la mère
Trusting my perceptions, I swim back home
However, this being a dream, I sleep
Entombed by fleece blankets in Chicago
Realizing nowhere is home, I plunge
To my death, a false negative, untruth
Observe my prison, I wake up each day
Memorializing others in life
Etched onto a ceramic glazed platter