LatinosUSA

A look of anger at the shadows that dance around her room.
She longs for the embrace that hangs quietly the air.
Patient…like a saint…she looks outside, through the window at her side,
and sees a grey parade of faces floating by.
Who’s there? Are they dancing in a minor key? A waltz? What´s this I see?
Are shadows now of flesh and bone?
Perhaps.

Yet indifferent, and smiling, they passed on by beguiling.
At once she summoned white-hot suns to melt the burning icebergs,
so that her ship can sail the night winds while the waves struggle behind her.
And like her legs, that tremble while she walks defiant down that cliff of long ago,
where old memories are anchored,
like the smell of children’s laughter,
or the image of red teardrops on the sidewalk,
she feels the strength that builds up fast inside her.

No longer ruminating in the anger,
the gift of shadows,
the result of silence,
she reclines upon her bed of thorns and smokes the air around her.
She lovingly embraces one last shadow,
the face created by that last wisp of smoke,
and then the music stopped.
And the dance suddenly ended.

She knows the wisteria no longer reaches her window like before,
the old vines that brought her lonely fugitives
bearing carnivals of fantasy,
and ghosts that mock the sunrise.
She’s closed that door behind her…
And shadows?
She knows that they still dance in other people´s bedrooms
that are also filled with smoke.

C.2025 – Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 06 MAR 2022/11 FEB 2025 – Valencia, España