EDUARDO BERLINER . RIGHT UNDER MY BONES

Right under my bones

Everything that disappears

a bruise

blackish purple with a red rim

the third day, ocher stained with blue 

A block of iron waiting for moss to grow.

Containment screens draped over a concrete skeleton.

A red patch covered the blue exposed to time

A sun stained with autumn 

Changing the seasons on its little radio dial 

the sound vibrates in his members

An old blurry photograph

taken from someplace far from here

where?

Waiting, short of breath, for the predawn 

the oxygen measurement in his blood

Learning the language of the body’s signs

Nostrils flaring and narrowing

The quickened pace of the shifting landscape in his thorax

Fitting together grains of memory within his ribcage

to dismantle this small castle when we catch sight of the sea

Fear

fear of the helicopter’s noise

fear of the vacuum cleaner’s groans

fear of the machines in his factory

the click-clack of nails on the wooden floor tiles

A leaden gray sky framed by an aggressive white

looking from here the sunlight covers his smile on the photographic paper

In the distance a child tests his voice 

faraway

faraway draws near

not so near

My eyes will soon recede

receding

a flood

the same sky

leaden gray

The plant life conceals the river

throwing stones to knock down avocados

the body devoured

snake’s beard grass

a piece of fruit swarming with ants

the word under the rock

the rotten smell

where is the carcass?

Eduardo Berliner, 2023