ONE NIGHT IN 1958, THE AUTHOR MEETS REMEDIOS Comments

At eleven o'clock, after the exhibition of your paintings, someone calls me in despair. I'm waiting for you, says the voice, layered over with dry flowers and dust. I am in Mexico, just passing through, and no one knows me here; still, my lips tremble and my white heart beats as if to reach the stony sky.

It's eleven o'clock and it will rain.

It's eleven o'clock and I'll drink seven glasses, seven trees, seven empty streets and different roads. I will hail seven cabs before I find you, seven machines in flight.

And now tonight is not tonight and I discover that the voice was yours, Remedios, covered with dry flowers and dust. You died in 1963; it doesn't matter. It's eleven o'clock one night in 1958 and I draw closer on the path of trees. The candle will be lit. The fingers slipping through the curtain or the wall. The lone cat keeping watch among the leaves.

I will apologize for being a bad guest, falsifying facts and voices. I'll kiss your sex. You'll tangle me up in your waist, the brambles of your hair. And you, Remedios, will you be moved, will you caress me?
Will you invite me like a needle through your frozen flesh, because you've painted it this way?
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