The Disappeared

		Absence (M.A. Reilly, 2011)         The Disappeared  - Marjorie Agosín                                                                                      Translated by Roberta Gordenstein The disappeared took their voices with them their voices with which they sang The International their tongues and languages We became accustomed to not hearing them while we searched for them perhaps secretly we dreamt that some day they would be waiting for us at the corner café or in the schoolyard as if nothing had happened because it was a bad dream in some short story by Borges With them we also lost the transparency of objects the illusion of every day that it was always the present the moment the transparency of objects And so we grew accustomed to filling ourselves with absence to a gray silence on our cracked faces to forgetting their voices to really believing that perhaps not one of them existed that these disappeared were not real And so we too disappeared from history we shriveled up the sky also smaller we no longer searched for anyone we did not question anyone we grew silent in order to die or perhaps to live in miniature and one day like them we also disappeared except that we were aware we dressed in mourning we joined forces with fear little by little indifference defeated us too We expected nothing else except occasionally thinking yes, perhaps they would again appear in that corner café or in that instant of the sun when summer is a ceremony of delight.
		Published in The International Literary Quarterly, Issue 3, May 2008