WHERE I BECOME YOU (2.) Poem by Antjie Krog

2.

your vowels die passing me
so close that I
could have been the one

endless the static cargo of stars
that sputtering in the night shackles us

but you that I could have been
but was not yet, you shuffle
stubbornly you sift to bestowed profusion

each leaf that falls
falls alone, I counter

your face grinds to a halt

I want
the I that is I
to stay

but where
does it begin,
this being-I?

at the place
where the I is like you
or there where the I is other than you?

my tongue goes deaf
your eyes coo from the sockets of the lost ones
just a breathlick of light
pomegranate pip light
between where I-am is
and not-you is

I decay - grit in the throat
your vowels die passing
so close
that my eyelid welds itself to your love