BREACHE #2, extract
For the wind passes over it
Mali, Mali, the murmur that sings between my lips, strolls in the air before being blown away,
in june, Mali, your very name while I look at the town fading away.
At the bottom, right at the bottom, shapes, figures.
A cigarette angrily tossed on the asphalt, a shower of sparks all the way to the gutter,
where jails and dreams are drifting.
A shooting star, very low, below your feet,
a wish to make, a dream to live in
for the rest of your life.
Tightly kept secrets in the warm, but dreams, dreams... All the paraphernalia of dreams and jails,
in the torpor and the first coolness, at last, of the dusk, buffer zone, neverending dream,
love at point-blank range.
Instead of nightclubbing, from now on we shall prefer jaildreaming, initiated by Mali. Nocturnal heat, Mali, and the day’s shimmer
dying on our skins.
Mali, you illuminate me. To touch you is the only thing that still matters.
For the time it takes to foxtrott across the street, a slight breeze through the wide open window,
so wide open that whatever shape or figure in the street might scale the wall,
adhesive hands, pressed against the stonewall,
cling to this ledge I’m leaning on
and sneak into this oblong space which is, Mali, what links me to the world.
Blurring below,
the town falls asleep – and this space, this frame in front of me, connects me and draws the world to me with a slight breeze.
The warmth makes me smile and believe, at least for a moment, that happiness is still something possible, like a slight breeze on a naked shoulder,
Through the open rectangle, infinity is a gift that makes my shoulder shiver.
Down, on the fertile clay, on sediments deposited by the river, life goes on,
shamelessly forgetting its principles.
Life goes on, hanging out with the foreigner, the wanderer,
easy going life, giving in to laisser-faire ;
Life forgets to hold the door open
for old women and strollers, forgets to tie a double knot in its laces before roaming the world, forgets
never to go out without whatever is needed to avoid any disgraceful, deforming disease.
Life goes out without any mirror in its bag, any sword under its cape, any leash around its neck.
Love survives, can you guess how ?
Through a breeze-on-the-skin, it can restore its strength.
Love shall never be totally trampled.
All this sweat, says Mali, pouring all day
out of our bodies, all these vapours in the evening, wafting vapours,
swapped sweatiness shimmering
from one flesh to another.
Mali, I become intoxicated until I have had enough of hope and nightmares.
I’m hanging around the gutter, where dreams are jails drifting. I won’t tell Mali. I won’t whisper anything that could make Mali hear about me disgracing myself with creatures of the night, in the limeblossom breeze. We’re not marginal enough.
We’re not marginal enough.
Below, shapes, figures, pollens, cigarette butts angrily tossed spattering the pavement dust with dying specks of light. And, facing me, the sky. And the blurring town,
spreading its legs.
Faded limeblossoms suspended in the dead air of the town’s arteries,
from one window to the other,
from one gutter to the other.
I’m waiting for Mali tonight.
Let’s sit on the doorsteps a while and not
cross the threshold but let ourselves be surprised by an impalpable desire visiting us, as seagulls let themselves be carried by northwinds,
as fishingnets hanging outside and bleeding,
as easy preys of love in wait.
When evening comes to town, the curtain falls, curls of smoke slowly waft, bodies worn out after effort, vapours, vapours, dying illusions.
Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s Mali.
And now, a chair calls me. Someone is sitting there. Someone is looking for love – someone who won’t leave until someone comes looking for him.
Mali, I murmured your name in streets, open to the winds of evening.
One day, Mali will answer my question, will tell me her name, her country, her necklaces.
Yes, says Mali, a merest breath at my shoulder.
It will be in the doorway of a low house on the farthest island.
It will be when Mali rises from the doorstep of the low house and crosses the threshold.
Sur lui qu’un souffle passe, in Brèches, Laurent Contamin, ed. Eclats d’Encre.
