REPARACIÓN

Biopsy

Have I told you, love, the experience
I used to have before I knew you?
At first it seemed a dream- I`d be in bed-
then I`d realized I was awake, which made it-
it was already frightening- appalling.

A dense, percussive, pulsing hum,
too loud to bear as soon as I`d hear it,
it would be become a coil of audible matter
tightening over me, so piercing
I was sure I`d tear apart in it.

I`d try to say a word to contradict it,
but is hold on me was absolute,
I was paralyzed; then, my terror
past some limit, I´d try again: this time
I`d cry out aloud, and it would stop.

Trembling. I`d come to myself, as,
the night oy your tests, I came shuddering
awake, my fare for you, for both of us,
raging more terribly through me
than that vision of annihilation ever did.

It was like the desolate time before you:
I couldn`t turn to you for reassurance
lest I frighten you, couldn`t embrace you
for fear I`d wake you to your own anxiety,
so, as I had then, I lay helpless, mute.

The results were "negative"; now
I`ll tell you of those hours in which my life,
not touching you but holding you,
not making a sound but crying for you,
divided back into the half it is without you

C.K. Williams