Portrait 9

My own boy,

I was away. Recuperating. On the island where the poetess spent a year and a half incarcerated. She is, of course, dead now, like everybody else.

For a few days I managed to think of you very little: only when I lay in bed late at night trying to sleep and when I swam out to the deepest seas trying to hear the laughter of the abyss. I almost thought I would manage to forget what your face looked like, what your body felt like, what your voice sounded like.

I sat on the edge of a cliff contemplating the forthcoming joy of oblivion. I sang Come away death to the rooks crowing above my head. And then I saw the bottle. It could have been any bottle but I had no doubt the message it contained was from you. And it was, of course. You are determined that I should crave for you for ever. I miss you, it said, my Iris. It is I.

And it all came back: the face, the body, the voice; the abyss.

The messages kept coming day after day, sometimes twice a day. They only stopped when I made the decision to come back to the place where you can find me. I have been waiting for you. Again. And dreaming of posing for you. Motionless. Speechless. Lifeless.

Iris