"feu dans le sang"

(Fire in the blood)

"l'attente est érotique"

(The wait is erotic)

I wonder what you wrote just for you?

Between the margins?

Inside your address book?

I wonder how your letters were?

How many did you throw away?

Did you have secret lines

Only one person would understand?

—

I just reached 30

You’re 39

I wish I could ask you how this goes

—-

where loss is

How it feels

Did you feel it coming?

Did you write regardless ?

—-

I feel this guilt, like acid in my chest,

When I think about the things I don’t say

I reserve the right to write whatever I want…

—-

Nothing is permanent

And I think about that heat

I think about that loss

Like words,forgotten unused…

How many did we lose?

—-

I pour her tea

She writes on the sides of the pages of her journal

She has a novel she’s working on

She doesn’t think she’ll finish it

We can hear them coming

And it occurs to us

You can hear and feel

Life around you this

Absurd chess game we try so hard at

love coming

storms coming

These boots coming

She won’t finish this novel…

She’s 39

feu dans le sang

I drink my tea

She’s here for a moment

I close my eyes

And

She’s gone

Like so many things

Blown away by a storm

—

The sun comes out

And I wonder

If we missed her,

I wonder how many more like her

We lost…

Quotes from

Irène Némirovsky