205 292
207
JOY
Translated from French
by Clayton McKee
PART 1
1
I
didn’t get a lot of sleep
yet there is happiness
in my muscles, warmth
in my blood that keeps me
company. There’s this light
in the city, the September
sun thaws the heart and the
hoods of cars. I’m driving
with only one hand, the
other arm is hanging out of
the window, I love feeling
the warm door beneath my
palm, the caress of the metal
on my forearm. Truly, I’m not
driving but being driven, I
let myself be driven: it’s the
road that decides for me: the
roads, the stoplights, and the
sun. My car knows the way
to the hospital by heart. I’ve
traveled there a lot lately.
Today mom has a good voice;
I noticed it right away on
the phone. I tell her I will be
there soon, that I’m already
on my way to her. All she has
to do is close her eyes and
sleep, I would be there when
she woke up. I speed up a bit
more and it seems that all
of the stoplights in Paris are
in sync, that they gave each
other the word to turn green.
Louise calls me, a sleepy
voice. She wants to know how
I’m doing, how I’m managing
without sleep, if I have a
headset, if my meeting went
as I had hoped. She tells me
that she’s still in bed, that
my smell is lingering in the
sheets, our smell. At the
entrance to the hospital, in
order for them to open the
gates, I announce that I’m
there for an emergency. This
has worked for weeks, I tell
the same lie, the gate rises as