White Shadow
Predictably, I’m alone
waiting for a server
at yet another crowded
restaurant in Buenos Aires.
As if from nowhere,
phrases rain hard on
me tonight. In case
they bring meaning,
I scribble them down:
White shadow.
Perfume without aroma.
Elephant riding a butterfly.
Where are my dead loves?
The message is grim.
The doctor says I have been
awaiting an encounter with him
that will never happen.
That I’ve been endlessly
searching this city wanting
him beside me, now
at this too-big table.
The doctor says I’m refusing
to splinter shared into single
self. Shall I emerge whole,
divided but stronger?
Shall I flee this table out
into these wild city streets
or listen to the voices:
stay, order?
.
Beatriz Dujovne is a licensed psychologist with a private psychotherapy practice. She is the author of In Strangers’ Arms: The Magic of the Tango (McFarland, 2011) and Don’t Be Sad After I’m Gone (McFarland, forthcoming) and has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed psychoanalytic journals.
