Rosalind Sanchez

by Charles Matthew Sauer

Estranged studio apartment (a shoe box, but a shoe box for graffiti in frames): the meticulous scrawlings of ink drawings caricature the spilled bowl of pistachio shells, polished turquoise and pearl jewelry in a perpendicular frenzy; the redolent plants with dull fuzzy leaves absorb the shadows cast of city red light paralleled through the shutter's offings; such a small studio apartment for Ms. Sanchez. So she took (her only opportunity for advancement lie with this small computer company), so she took her chances when they proposed a contract with the music industry.
It felt like morning along the pedestrian rush-ritual sidewalk, continuous blocks of block architecture. She dropped change into the paper cup (besides copper, the cup caught rain water) of a homeless woman, who sat at the steps of the subway station, who always cried so Ms. Sanchez was never sure why but cast the "poor child" as an apparition from her past and habitually handed her change.

On the office building steps: A bottle in a paper bag, a cola can, and a foil candy wrapper. She arrived. They drank coffee and discussed variations, combinations, euphony, cacophony, arranging sounds from the past:

1. They captured sounds,

moans of not sadness but the whale's immensity;

black grey being of pure language and grace

unfathomed below the falling snow and arctic ice

that rocked on waves like cracking cinder blocks.

2. The tintinnabulation of birds in flocks

fleeing before the torrential rain storm

in the chaotic assembly of the tropical forest;

the pattering sound of rain on the leaves

like the sound of rain on an aluminum roof.

Everyone left the office early except Ms. Sanchez or the selfsame Rosalind. And she began writing at her computer, if only to capture a reflection of herself in the mirror of words (which she will gather through little mental windows like roses); milk white roses with the breath of a name; the milk of the moon. She will drink a glass of claret wine. She will drink to herself,

So that now the name is with her

in the middle of the garden...

there stands a rose tree.

The tree, a woman,

leans over to kiss Rosalind's cheek.

Rosalind turns to smile

(a smile that says, "You shouldn't flatter me")

and finds her lips pressed to the lips of the Lady.

Their hearts pressed so close together

that the memory of everything

evaporates into an indigo blue,

where words are no longer important.

She dances around the Lady like a rose wreath

of ruby red blossoms,

to move the heart of the blooms

with ruby red dew.

Now the name is with her,

and she was the name with a black rosary

lying beneath a rose tree;

"but wasn't it an accident?"

She tried to retrace the impression of a kiss,

(in a computer animated cartoon

with a body of sleeping flowers)

Rosalind Sanchez returned home, through the street lamps, through the subway (dropping change into the woman's cup) out of the subway, through the orchestrated trees, the tin cans, the ashen pavement. The security man let her in. She dead-bolted the apartment door, recalling the passage of a day. She uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured a glass, and watched the headlights on the streets through the shutters.