ALICE RAHON

Despair

To Pablo Picasso

The fireworks have gone off. Gray is the absolute color of the present tense. I saw that nightingales imitate dead leaves well before autumn. Despair is a school for deaf-mutes taking their Sunday walk. It would be better. I don’t know what would be better. The thread breaks constantly; perhaps it’s the same frustrating task as when a blind man tries to recall the memory of colors as his white window. Beautiful women with silver waists always fly above cities—Patience—the signs on those roads where every mistake is irreparable end in a horsehead-shaped club. We must cry out all our secrets before it’s too late. It’s previously too late if we’ve forgotten to leave the chair where despair will sit to join our conversation. Despair will never be reduced to begging even if they burn his arms. Then he’ll affect the silhouette of a poppy against a stormy sky. His pipe-like laughter will only become insulting. For a while I’ve lived on a geography map on the wall. I think I’m at the wind’s crossroads. I chat with him. The bouquet of larkspur takes flight at dusk and goes to spend the night on the ponds. The doll jumps rope with its shadow. I shall not tame that shadow that followed me during childhood. I think that at the bottom of their graves the dead listen for a long time to see if their hearts will start beating again. For the noise, for the company of noise, let’s greet the company tied by strings.