The Sleeping Wall

Jane M. Downs
Blue-black hills. Battered sky. The dog shivers in the dawn cold.
The ground where Philip rests not yet part of the earth but suspended within it. At first
she thinks the woman is a girl. They both wear red. Both stand straight. Medina’s black
hair loose, the other’s tightly braided.
Medina forms a frame with her hands through which to view the woman. The long distance
between them. Did she see the woman cross herself?
The dog runs around her in circles. She calls his name and bends to stroke his head. She
looks up. The woman is gone, the wind a broken chord.
8
Translations in Mai’s careful script. Words measured, weighed. Huy Can’s dream birds
flock ’round a bedside. Bich Khe’s world of velvet clouds, ethereal hands.
Flocks of words, each one a respite from loneliness. French. Vietnamese. English. She
runs along the wall of history, her thoughts the offspring of her union with another’s mind.
Trees sleep in final blaze. Birch empty themselves of copper leaves. First thorns of frost on
the pane. Gathering quiet something soft she can rest her head on. Something that could
smother her.
9
Sky marbled gray over the Charles River. Again, displaced. With each move towards home
Mai moves farther away from one. Words are her harbor. The music of history forged into
shapes, distilled into sound. Talismans that keep her safe.
Her rooms fill with objects that have found her. Ivory goddess. Thin bracelet of glass
beads, second-hand volumes of books. Anchors for her new life. Her body reclaimed.
Flesh no longer a balm, a salve spilling through James’s fingers.
Beyond her window, steeples pierce the city sky. Sway of church bells, scintilla of sound
from another world. She closes her eyes. Sees herself running past the old French wall,
her jacket a splash of crimson against a crumbling surface, her long braid an arrow down
her back. She runs and runs until she disappears.
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