Poems

Braille

Purple,
red,
yellow,
green, gold –
as if we pleaded for colours,
went begging from one tube station to another.
White – like sound, perhaps the fl ute.
It falls – careful, it’s steep, you could slip.
Th e sounds of frost pierce us –
not sparrows but colourful parrots
on a perch of ice.
My neighbour’s twenty cats – the whole orchestra
miaowing – and now yellow, the moon full
and electric fl owers of light in our houses.
When dawn breaks,
the sky is smeared with cherry mousse.
First, black – not a single sound –
we sleep, or we die.
The floor creaks a little
as black becomes grey,
then blue – a cool wave on hot feet.
Breath is calmer now, and the wind
hides in its robe its wing of dust and ash.
Red – lava, one hundred volts!
French horn, trombone, tuba,
all playing together.
Your fingers near my stomach – green.
And as for blue –
but let’s kiss before the dawn breaks gold...
You ask me which is better:
to go blind or to go deaf.
I ask you is it better
to go blind or go deaf.
You reply: your thousand lakes of colour have dried up.
I reply: your thousand fields of colour are all dry.
A glance flashes between us.
It is my doing, this braille.
It is your doing.