tengo un hermano gemelo
en un cerro jorobado
mientras él mira hacia el mar
yo miro a mi cali amado
– jorge iván cardona soto, Cali Para Principiantes
I am the lunatic teetering on a skyscraper’s cornice in Calvino’s city of Zirma. I can see the blind black man tapping his cane on the cobblestones, the girl walking with a puma on a leash, and other lunatics, like me, spending hours on the cornices, watching the city below performing its rituals. Its rituals are its existence. “The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind.” I keep playing it over and over again, the silence, the absence. The absence. Even my memories seem absent. I am unable to remember, to go back, to gather, to find. My mind is scattered. Only things around me stick in my mind.
