Lethe, the river

You leave the car by the bend of the river,
where the mist hovers like a dream of a stream.
You see scattered fragments from a thatched house
peeking through the still maze of branches,
behind a hedge withholding the silence.
You smoke a cigarette, a last one,
and listen to this dead quietness
that is made of breathed embers,
like you turning into void.
You ask yourself whether you are alive
when you leave the road of the dead pheasants.
You look at your own hands,
they are thin and pale, about to vanish.
You gaze the river as if it kept a secret,
but it is now that all poetry turns into dull prose.
You ask yourself from what strange wound
has your will been drained for so long
and you feel too empty to cry.
You are alone, you left your car
as if it never existed.
You have nothing, you face the water,
the sacred water that makes forget
and start again, fresh and with no name.
There is an island, but no boat.
There is another river, but no path.
You take off your clothes and start crossing.
You hold secretly my fading image,
as seen from the other side of the mirror.
And you go.

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