An Argentinian Script

Rosemary Sullivan
From:   The Space A Name Makes. Black Moss Press, 1986. p 30

for N.F.

You speak of one afternoon—
the sun was doing its yellow dance
across the cafe table.
Above the rim of your cup
a car stopped. Two men
descended a street as in a film—
where the extras go on with their business
pretending not to notice
and the street is just a pretext
to pull the plot together—
suddenly you knew the script.

All your life
you've dragged these men
behind you.

This is the moment
you dream each night, differently.
But always the same wall,
the same hot hiss of lead,
waking, when the blindfold's off,
among the dead
and the ones whose hair turned white,
five times, five deaths,
undied,
screaming inside your head.

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Rosemary Sullivan's works copyright © to the author.