from Deaf Republic: 12. Sonya Speaks Slowly, As If Unaffected

I remember Tony arguing in front of his mirrors, the soldiers were painting the trees, Tony sat on the floor of white hair, and all the trees were painted white. And he spat at Alfonso’s irony, but when they played accordion, the fourth among us had no name. “I am not sleeping with Tony! He simply cuts my hair!” —but our dinner is a tiny blue fish and, with my lean brother-in-law, we are playing cards. I pull spade after spade after spade but this skinny sparrow, this barber no simple soul, takes me with his fingers by my nose and kisses me, quickly, on the lips! When Tony washed my hair, when Alfonso kissed between my toes, when my lips trembled, when the fourth one laughed, when Tony slept, slept in the earth, on the empty streets of our district, a bit of wind called for the life which no one knew, a life which daily took all of us: my neighbor taken, his wife taken, their apartment quiet. I say this slowly, as if unaffected: their apartment quiet, on the floor, dirty water from their boots.