(A man feeds ducks by the pond in the square. The woman he loves walks by him; she doesn’t know him. He is struck dumb by her presence. These are his thoughts.)
Morning is
Madonna a la plaza.
Her hair is burnt
Pan power.
D’or corps tell me
I love her.
Body of Christ,
Amen.
I feed ducks
by the pond’s lip, conversely
blinding cats with my skin—
and they walk,
walk to the mother
(oh, that she should see me here
looking such a cunt!)
and my block knees pious
as Senora Veracruz on
Sunday.
I’ve my avian coterie, I’ve
the sound of bread on their lips, but to bind
Charon
with musical palms, to gift
Euridice
with the prismic throat of the toucan.
My cheeks are hibiscus, limbs
ibis thin
her mouth bud and eyes as
deferred—am I in love or
a throatless cock, sparse of plumage, de-sexed
and crusted dry?
Solar flagellation
will make move,
but I am one
and drying with her clothes, dying on her drying line.
Brittle-minded, I dream—
Round, peaceable bird, folding
linens in blackness, gold-armed
in Barcelona pre-dawn.
