Coming back,
Red music drips from an old catalepsy of fountains —
A soaring darkness
and dead fire of purple Jacarandas.
In confused light,
Faces dissolve into exhausted Spanish arcades.
Groves of damp firethorns cover
the shadows of women.
Nameless streets fill with dust and grackles.
Evening’s white room closes.
Bells and wind drift over wild rye.
Erosions of murmured languages
translate on a flickered wall.
Out of returning hours,
Autumn’s fallen radiance.
Clocks shudder in a precise throb of hands —
Empty alleys and still urns along the square.
By the ward,
Patients wait in twilight courtyards
like limp puppets.
In a flutter of old linens,
Doves of God ascend the whispered night.