3 December 2023

Nightmare

After Louise Gluck

My mother keeps threatening

to cut off our relationship.

In this way, she prepares me

for her death.

Even with three oceans

between us,

in the months we do not speak,

the rains batter into

flood, the mangoes

overripe into rot,

even the stray cat

and monkey family fail

to meet my eye.

As the only child

of a small, waning family,

her death is the ultimate terror.

The fear of excommunication,

of a final unanchoring,

in a place where family and tribe

determine everything.

My lover, who has never lived

any other way, says:

I’m finally understanding

why you call yourself alone.

But I am afraid

of something else altogether.

My nightmare is the image

Duras paints —

of the failed writer,

of the wounded daughter,

standing outside the closed door.

Both are one:

too late to change

anything.