I turn to a memory aid, what must my father have been like
when I was their age. Searching for the expressions,
some word, a hurried breath. It is emptiness,
writing from nothing.
.................................................................

The expression kids grow quickly is repeated ad nauseam
while the actions of every day overtake us. Traveling
alone on the bus. Coming home at dawn on a Saturday.
In the end fear, sex, dreams flower without rest.
.................................................................

Time passes quickly. One day it’s the trace of a moustache
about to show. Another, that sour perspiration. The changes come
one after another, I can’t get a hold on them. Memory follows
what has just taken place, and there’s no mercy for a father
looking on.
.................................................................

The tricks come one after the other like a trompe l’oeil.
I don’t know how to look but I see them, a random and spontaneous
series. He thinks he is fooling me
and I that I already know. The pain of the betrayal burns
even if the blood never reaches the river.
.................................................................

I would like to be him when his mother embraces him.

.................................................................

The desert will always be this house where they were born
and are still growing. The sand shifts from one room to another,
I follow after them, lend them a camel, give them
my keffiyeh against the sun as I lose
track of the nights and days.