Breathing Time
Tempo para Respirar - an installation by Maria Nepomuceno at the Sunley Gallery, Turner Contemporary, Margate
My feet lie like two blue fish on a coil of blue rope,
as if some fisherman’s dragged them from the turbid
sea outside. I think of standing in the blue volcano,
letting myself be
swept away in the lava of blue beads.
Instead, I sit and breathe, let part of me float skyward
to rest in the empty chair swaying somewhere towards
heaven. We will all leave
empty chairs on earth. A plant
made of rope climbs the wall of my memories.
The Mexican hats are not mine, although I remember
someone wearing one
once. Perhaps I’ll lie in the red hammock, take my first breaths again in the embrace of its stripey vulva,
standing on its emphatic red elephant’s foot. Yes,
I’ll spend time breathing there, just as I’m breathing
here now, writing this,
then I’ll leave, everything,
never having stood, in the blue volcano, what remains
of my breath will hang somewhere near an empty chair.
