When Language Breaks

When Language Breaks

The most genuine tree fills up with you

and your larvae. The narrowest street,

the one full of gossip, inhabits you.

Water pronounces your name

when it suffuses our hands

with pure beauty.

You draw your face

on the most horrible dry winter leaf

and I still recognize you.

Although the world surrenders to us all

it's impossible to reach you.

Right now, no one’s home.

Only you. And you're howling

like a wounded wolf.

A part of me, of your light,

left with to the last name

that names us. The other part,

the smallest, disappeared with your voice.

I mean, your voice was the language

of everyday things when you lived.

Now language is the skin

of the world. That's why

we always baptize Death

wearing blindfolds.

That night I talked to my father

who sat at the table. I said

what Sharon Olds never could ::

The photograph I wanted to find

in the family album ::

Brothers and sisters together.

My parents, euphoric couple in love,

pure honest love. Everyone

on luminous, imported paper.

But the impossible falters again

on these pages :: Because beauty,

father, beauty does not sleep

with the living.