A visit to the sanatorium

Gertude takes me aside
entrusting me with manuscripts rescued from the fire.

An ancistrus dances on the wall
and her shadow, when she begs me
- tell him that my name is not Bertha.

Shaking off dust insects from her shoulders
- Bertha… does he ever talk to you
without raving?

A gaping window, a terrace
full of pigeons, animal vortex, then
nothing but Gertrude’s charged silence
the terrace sinks, the room goes up in flames