Reminiscence

I explore old waters

I search for the first fire.

Infancy,

that house filled with ghosts;

my grandmother’s courtyard,

the earth, the trees from which I’m made.

The guava smashing against the patio’s red tiles midafternoon,

afternoons where I watched life pass by from a sidewalk.

And I fooled myself believing my hands were made to narrate the world.

I write, that’s for sure,

there’s so much I want to name and that I can’t;

so much life slipping through my hands,

so much shadow ruffling my hair

so many words suspended in the air

—miniscule dust particles

lit by the light from the window—

that I must shake off

the way someone shakes off the last layer of skin.

And I lie

if I say that it’s stone, mountain, sea, river,

the birds taking flight, the corners of a house,

my grandmother’s face, her numerous ghosts

the ones who today

ask to be counted.

There is so much that I want to name and that I cannot.

I write, that’s for sure.

Death, from the other side,

is levitating.