my grandmother was born with the gift of sight. three cries from the owl at full moon and another sister died, a sparrow spotted in the west during the wrong season and some other misfortune befell the family. once she asked me to go with her to the heidelberg post office to send an urgent telegram to her brother in ceres. a week later: the funeral. my aunt showed it to me years later, ‘i’ll never forget what you did for me in onrust, annie’; she packed her black dress and booked her train ticket to swellendam nearly a month before her mother died. i never really got the code of these superstitions but the dream about losing your teeth fascinated me; ‘my child’, she was earnest,’perhaps you’re too young to understand, it means losing hope.’
frida kahlo at the bozar in brussels; i didn’t really want to go but you were so insistent. we must have walked a lot, i don’t remember, i don’t remember a lot about that day. we waited for the museum to open, your impatience was almost as severe as frida’s obsession with her physical condition.
twisted on my back, squinting to read verlaine in the brightness; with a flock of bright umbrellas against the blue sea it seemed sacrilegious, verlaine should rather be a shroud in the cold, dark existential night. i started re-reading the lorca anthology instead; apples and sunshine.
i don’t mind if you read this. on a beach, somewhere hot, i remember considering our polyamorous condition as a general subject justified by notions of common lust when he walked past and lay next to me in the sand; he turned to me with the coarse grains still stuck to his moist parts, a few moments later i was milking his cock with my hand.
unconsciousness is never a conscious decision. i perhaps spent a moment too long in not appreciating the ambitious bourgeoise architecture of the bozar to made it to the cafe across the street just in time, or so i thought. i can’t remember hitting the ground; i can’t remember you behind me but i want to believe you were there. i woke up in the ambulance surrounded by foreign voices in a foreign language, pushing you away; i struggled to call out but as we pulled away i heard you shouting, ‘i’ve got your teeth.’
