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The Aunts
They always went out together every afternoon,
The went to cafes, department stores—everything around them was a bird cage—
At other times they had tea on the patio
and they talked, they always talked with a slight uneasiness:
the memory of a difficult choice, still doubtful.
They talked. Of themselves always, always themselves, voracious, delicate.
Their eyes slid over appearances,
over the masks of things (enchantment or illusion?)
They’d remain sitting there, gifted with a false brilliance,
a lifeless freshness, for hours, entire afternoon talking about things,
about feelings, love, life.
That was their domain.
And they talked and talked, always repeating themselves, turning the same things over,
ceaselessly running through their fingers the stuff
extracted from their lives, kneading it, stretching it
until they formed between their fingers a lump, a little gray ball.
by Alfonso Quijada Urias
from Poetry Like Bread
Curbstone Press,1994
translation: Darwin J. Flakoll
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