Rooted Silence

by Iván A. Salazar M.

translated from Spanish by Stefania Rodríguez Castro

The pillow cradles a furrow of voice

where every echo turns to salt.

(A tide‑less moon lets fall a sigh

into the silent receiver.)

Your name is now a moth, a silent thief

that feasts upon the chronicles of days.

August has a hole

and December bleeds black ink.

In the mirror, someone unravels a skein of shadows

—is it you?—

but logic rots between my fingers:

only a clock without hands remain

and a tree that grows toward its roots.

Today I learned the void has teeth that gnaw:

the letters you left unwritten,

the planets you froze in their orbits,

the perfume that vanished before it could be named.

(In the kitchen, sugar turns to ash,

and the coffee boils on reverse into a cup no one holds).

Mother:

your laughter is now the hiss of radio static

a fossil lodged in my throat,

a firewater of shadows

that I sip through the sleepless nights.

The world bleeds in plural:

No one

No one

No one

In every chair you no longer occupy.

(The bed no longer sinks on the left side.

The sky is silent)

Side note:

How is absence measured?

In grams of dust, in seconds of vertigo,

in syllables the wind drags away untranslated?

—Perhaps the hollow you left

is an extinct language

that my mouth articulates

in braille.