Tongue‐and‐grooved

I hadn't thought to open your travel journal, despite everything with divination on my mind, in the hope of coming across some treasure. And there was no confession whatsoever, no secret: just your perfect handwriting, tu caligrafía perfecta. And, parsed in India ink, your meditations, your panoramic originality, your unaffectedness line by line, horizon by horizon (since the days were passing), the whole Atlantic sloshed between your lachrymal Caribbeanisms; your tribulations, your memories and anxieties on hearing the mutter of the engine, the low hum of propellers, your knowing yourself to be at the mercy of air, wind, your intimate knowledge of those depths in which you would go on living vivirías ya in others, each with their own journal and their own journey. My own I take for granted. You took flying without wings to its rapturous limit, you, the well born, impeccable in your thinking, your manners, your conversation and your opulent descriptions free of hyperbole; knowing how to charm, to take charge, to reel in, to tease and savor. You, with your lustrous eyes smiling. Soaking up the listening, blaming with discretion. Various locks, hooks, knockers. A suitcase plastered with seals, stamps from distant latitudes, The Netherlands, Austria, Canada, wooden shoes, white alpine flowers, mallards in flight: your own wings spread, all I could wish for. With the knowledge of your death, I've kept my childhood clothes in your suitcase, those nylons I never knew how to wear, a silk-lined skirt, your portrait, fetishes, a necklace that changed me into you, the evaporated water from Lourdes that, neither saint nor virgin, can still instigate miracles. All of it clearly there sólo visibles in the coffin of the world

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