On the stairs, a light fixture descends to my room,
  a point of pressure on my jaw,
  twenty meters away a new building is built,
  five meters away my mother cooks.
  
  The bones of my jaw creak as if my body
  were reanimated bones,
  a couple of years ago our house was a mound of lime, sand, and grass,
  now it is our quiet cathedral,
  still like the word that does not want to leave my mouth.
  
  We are free, mother,
  free from roots,
  free from the world,
  free from earth,
  free from hatred,
  free from them,
  free from prying eyes,
  free from others' desires,
  free from others' words,
  free now from words.
  
  I hold the photos of Mexico City:
  Your garden, your butterflies, your flowers,
  our previous life was lived by others.
  The photos are increasingly blurred and pale,
  little by little the humidity of this house deteriorates them,
  other organisms, all of them more alive than us,
  have taken the photographic paper
  and made their home in the relics of mine.