Into Cartagena they came. The Greeks, the Romans, the Phoenicians and some more.
Now water licks at the pier wall and boats stand sails rolled and decks swept. Only the cry of a sea gull unfurling.
In the narrow streets I see a pause. A consonant swallowed. Time held.
2
On the barstool alongside mine a young man lights a cigarette.
Later he comes to my table draws the chair and plants himself there. I shred my bread and say nothing.
We have no language no tongues, no consonants.
I watch his fingers and he, my mouth Then memory comes calling. Of another time when I knew a hunger, deliberate and slow.
Edouar, he scrawls on a paper and a telephone number
Folding the paper, I smile I will not call I know Here in Cartagena, even more so Hunger must pause.
3
How could I have known that copper glistened green? A warm sea on the rooftops of your city. Or that on a rock lived a fairytale a dull green as well.
How could I have known that for me you would always be the little merman treading glass? Pausing at each step. Knives turning when memories line.
How could I have known that what I dangled so thoughtlessly was hope? Only to coil it around my wrist again. How could I have known what I was doing?
And yet, what was I doing?
4
In the forests we walked, you tell me, once lived trolls and ogres... I picked pebbles on a cold gritty beach even one bearing the imprint of Aladdin's lamp.
Your fairy tales now live in a wire basket on my bookshelf. When it drapes my words with northern shadows I shall remember...
Of how in a green forest you found me the space of a hollowed out consonant and let me go back to being a child again
5
What am I doing? You say: I should be driving to Sweden with you at my side. I laugh
I watch you knit muscle into courage
I watched you cut your food as if your tomorrows. Neatly sliced and forked into gentle mouthfuls. I watch you hesitate.
In this city of green roofs I arrive at a pause again.
You are then I know too much alike. So I laugh again and say: which way is the airport now?
