translation
when his mother died Imago felt the
death of a language
of which he was now the only speaker
left
his sister had to translate what her
mother had meant
by refusing a funeral her approach gentle heuristic
leaving him to sift the content of
telephone calls
the visits on her birthdays the
odd letter
and into the past the unremembered remembered
memories painted by numbers by sentiment
by irony
the hermeneutics of the inarticulate the
needy
of the narrative knife scarring a life
dissecting the said
which he attempted to discuss with his
wife
in the language which obtained when he
spoke to her of family matters
by the living of the dead
