FRANCOISE ROY


Moon in Capricorn in the Eighth House

Sometimes, the eighth room of the ecliptic conceals a throbbing treasure. Armored, split open on the amatory tablecloth of the nuptial chamber, it turns into the very pit of the alcove, shining glister in the middle of the room barely receiving, through the windowsill, the stars’ fruity light, a glare that sucks the glass like an inverse breath.
What kind of a caress is to pierce the translucent skin of metal so as to
reach the scarlet maze ? What supernatural touch could make its arrhythmia dwindle solely by stroking it ? Which hand whose palm grows orchids, an instrument of instantaneous forge that can melt the iron of the peel ?
The limy dwelling of the snail, the rock-like spiral of the hermit crab and the double valve of the mollusk shelter into their hard bowl the softness of the skin; wrapped in its armor, torn from its shell, a trembling stone poised on a three-layer bottom.
Footsteps softly enter the mirror.
The singing of scales, voices hushing from within the corridor.
The whole house fits into the alcove.
 

33. Stay in front of the glass

Stay in front of the glass of the aquarium
Look at the dance of jellyfish, their fragile mesoglea.
Touch the glass separating you from them: you also came from an aquarium, although you don’t remember it. (It is not an evil mirror but a transparent wall). There you shall see them, in the liquid gunpowder of your rage, grow wings and have their nightingales become prey birds under the water.
You don't need binoculars: you are next to them, your nose touching the glass, seeing the submarine dovecot where a flock of birds peck at your heart.
Your heart is hanging on a hook behind the glass.
 

Armistice

Here I am, standing with empty hands, the dagger, the whip, the mallet, the knife on the floor, scattered around my shoes. Wheat stalks waiting for the gleaner to come.
The angel (pale wings of a black albatross) does not look like someone who would use weapons with a blade. He looks like anything but a hired killer. He leans over with such elegance (my God, a Botticelli painting with a sweet-gaze Madonna) that I think right away: he is going to pick up a bunch of flowers, a dozen chrysanthemums will sprout instantly on the tile floor, and He, because he is clairvoyant, anticipates such miraculous flowering.
But not so: with the gesture of a magician, He opens his palm over the objects of violence spread out at my feet, and he makes a bundle with them, as if it were a heap of asparagus or a bunch of daisies, not to say a bundle of firewood.
From here I can see Him throw them into the pond, like whoever after a crime wants to erase fingerprints from a gun handle. Seeing he reaches out to me, palms up, I step back.
Love, mist, so many things floating around. He looks at me without turning a hair.
A marrow of light makes a clean cut on his right cheek.

The Wheel of Maya

Delicacy,
soul's attire,
a passage,
a world of shapes.

I’m an apprentice of a forensic magician:
something needs to be resuscitated
underneath this blue death mask
where another of your visages
is formed.