Synesthesia

Genarro Rafael Pascual


Senses nothing but symbol, we have not
learned to sort sight from sound, image
from metaphor.

Dropped into the world, scrambling to
arrange and separate, to create shapes
from the little we are given.

Making sense, and then deconstructing,
reanalyzing, sieving fibers of sound,
melodies of color.

Your touch, redolent of fresh rain water
about to tap my drenched, deaf, skin,
my tongue, my parched self.

The world thus analyzed, the blur slowly
being formed into focus, as if stepping
back from an enormous portrait.

And I hear, the sound of hair slipping in
between forefinger and thumb, white
giggles from red lips.

The signs, symbols. How seemingly one
melds with another. Warm smile, a speck
of moonshine song.

Laughter, embracing me, stories and yet
more symbols. Then suddenly the world,
scrambling to separate.

Hand reciting elegies, feet singing away.
We were taught to separate image from
metaphor. I suppose

we forget from time to time. Some things
we carry on as we grow older. I’ve been
struggling to make more shapes,

seeking more of what was given. I step
back as I stare at the wider perspective:
the picture never clearer,

the picture never ends. Step back a pace
and it continuously unfolds. I am lost
in a blur, understanding nothing.