The Visit

the bedroom is a chamber of whispers. the midnight wind blows the curtains, pushing air into silk lungs. she sits in the corner, outlined faintly by the soft glare of the moon. she does not wear clothes, no nightrobe, no plush slippers. there is no spine to turn, no torso to twist, only the sobbing. the shadows of the room move, dance under the light, her features still blurred, but i imagine tears streaming down her face like the edges of a melting candle.

i, lying in bed, green-blue bonnet on my head, pull the sheets closer, hush to her heaving breath, her clasped hands, her eyes on mine as if we have known each other. as if i have not seen her only in empty documents, in archives drenched in blood. and i am someone else’s daughter, but in that moment she decides to tell me the best way to make porridge. jiggle the flour until there are no lumps, no clouds of dust you might chew on, no stones. stir in some fat, lard, butter, coconut, whatever you can find for some sweetness. some richness. she is saying everything besides the pain, centuries of it stacked like old coins, and i am selfish in thanking her for it.

i, who called her, summoned a face to put name to, to fill the shadowed room—have nothing to offer, no apology, no solution. no other option except haloes of air, overseers and military men, open palms and clenched fists, moving bodies and stealth paces. i only know what has been written in blood, and she only knows the moaning into cloth, screaming into water, knife on bone and fingers curled around throat, the cry of the wind, and the gushing out to earth, a drifting cloud, and hushed stars that blink down just as she blinks down at me—with no testament, no revelation, no prophecy, no words of wisdom, only the gyre in the drain, the hypnotic cycle-circle of remembering and forgetting, her heaving chest. the twilight’s breath.