1

I’m afraid you will ask me who I am at night if I awake. The heart gone crazy, I sniff for your scent and surface. I suddenly stop moving, I must not move. I wait for the images to slowly fade away. When I am lying beside you, I want to be a woman without history. I stretch out my hands to the morning light, compose goodness in spite of the misery of planets and believe that nothing can happen to our bodies once they embrace the world and the concreteness of objects: the first cup of coffee, my hand sinking into the humid crassula earth, my fingers grazing the curtain, lightness of lace against my cheek. You are deep asleep, unaware of me. This is how I want you. Sleeping.

2

You are sleeping. Sound asleep. Smiling. What dreams pull you away from terror? In vain I try to gather myself. Dawn spits me up, breathless, and I stand in front of a castle in ruins, its turrets and dungeons shifting on the beach I walk to, feeling alive. Some images can kill you. Lose me in your sleep. I pull up the bedsheet. Outside the window, I can almost touch the fresh air in our garden. The world is falling in order. Movement starts where night left it. My heart is a hollow muscle. Again. I am a woman who contains in her unbound greatness all of the earth’s tremors.

3

I am the woman of the morning light. My vibrancy is frail in the garden, as my fingers, deep in the soil, awaken the glory of the world. But she is blind to this. Her stomach is empty. She needs to grow roots in the ground of this scene. You do not notice how this woman manages the longevity of chaos. Gently the wind rocks her, lulls her. Beauty rises from the light. This is a joyous woman ignorant of the cruel night that snatches my name from me. Does she think of me when the ram sneers at my skin? Veiled by a cloud, I snug myself against your back and breathe in your breath. You are asleep, you are asleep, and calm, unaware that a mouth has opened wide over my life.

4

In the morning I am the woman who stretches like a cat, body-silence in the vegetation and dew. She is resting, she is resting, a fossil soul howling under the moon, alive with summer night. She tames dirt and all matter, neutral, merciless to suffering, and beautiful indifference that gradually dims her vision. Does she hear the distant rumour, car horns and other melodies, as truth grabs her with declawed fingers in the quivering water of an embrace?

5

Morning desperately whispers hello. How to explain this to you? Each morning I rise alive from my own ruin and glue happiness back together again. I am getting used to the heat and do not think of hell, knowing you are there, beside me, breathing without pain, in our bedroom, as I care for the plants. Vegetation tears apart our human envelope. Breathing becomes a gift, a space waiting to be filled, so that we can discover in words the whitish paste and weight of sacrifice.