Eclipse

She doesn’t exist. She is not a woman with large hips, curly hair and full lips. She doesn’t have a mole on her chin, nor wrinkles on her forehead, nor starry brown eyes. She doesn’t wear glasses, nor does she have a Caribbean voice. She has no name, no history, no lovers, no brothers, she didn’t study cinema, she doesn’t like strong coffee. A flash of light does not shine in her left eye. She doesn’t laugh out loud, throwing her head back. She does not sing songs by Mercedes Sosa or Silvio Rodríguez, nor does she play percussion. She is not obsessed with her bare feet, she does not photograph each corner of the ground. She does not quote Audre Lorde and Alice Walker all the time. She does not tie a red handkerchief to her rebellious hair.

She does not look me up and down in our first meeting. I don’t know her, we have never crossed paths, we have never been in the same space, nor have we lived together, nor have we spied on each other. She has not learned my name, nor has she given it that serious intonation, that sensual flash, every time she says it, every time she calls me. I have not recorded the scent of her neck, the texture of her hand, the tingling of her hair on my cheek. I have not pursued her back, her step, the wake of an affection because there is no affection, no footprint, no back. There has been no misunderstanding, no one has disputed her presence, nor has anyone interfered with our translation of looks.

We have not argued, nor thrown sharp conjectures, nor have we narrowed our bodies like the last word. There has not been any passionate, desperate, impertinent kiss. We have not evoked death, anxiety, pain. We have not made any unwelcome confessions of our unfinished lives. We have not exchanged emails, or proper names, or tiny gestures of affection. We have not taken any pictures, nor left any trace of our existence. She has not left without saying goodbye, nor has she left me with the ardor of any desire, the haste of any mouth, the question and the consequence. I do not miss her, I do not look for her, I do not ramble about flying to her island and spinning together in a corner of the world.

She does not love me or hate me. I’m not waiting for her to arrive, or to say silly words of love, or to find her hand extending along my skin, in the silence of an absence that is incomprehension and fury. I do not talk to her in the loneliness of my dreams, nor do I miss encounters that follow her to bed, to her body, to her night. She does not forget me or let me forget. We do not have a song, a word, a circumstance. No city welcomes us. We do not share any dusk, any illusion, any addiction. The day did not get dark too soon. We did not get drunk one from the other. It is not the woman in the hat, nor its darkness. She has not been lost, nor has she left me in delirium and tears.

No, we never saw each other. Nor was it an error. It did not happen like an eclipse, when for seconds, the sun’s and moon’s trajectories are disturbed.