The Long Night

You are asleep on the couch in your apartment in New York. The walls are green and cracked and stained with water. There is a picture in the kitchen of Cuba, the house in which you were born. Your mother is standing in the doorway. She is wearing a white dress. Her hand is raised, palm outward, in greeting or farewell. Now you are dreaming of her and of green jungles, low hills rising verdant from the fog. You are asleep on the couch. Your eyes open, shut, flicker, close. You are still. Around you, everything is silent: the cars on the streets below have stopped; people in cafes are motionless; the sun is frozen overhead, a great dull lamp. The world is waiting for you. The city. It is holding its breath.