At noon some things are invisible.
Lovers:
even in the desert’s blinding light
we make out halting darkness
a foreign shout:
are they us? Are we them?
Guilt burns a hole
in La Posa’s hand
as she tries to escape her supernatural wedding:
through the hole milky sky
yellow-rimmed slopes white filter of bird’s wing your lover’s skin
is turning yellow.
Shepherd who went to the spring
shepherd who came from the spring
remove the evil eye
from the one you put it on.
Virgin Mary
you with your hand and I with mine.
Far-off a door slams against the intelligence of light:
mother of the sorrows
who’s the third in our bed
who’s lying in the run-off,
dusty as a cabra?
Stones fall against each other as you walk
(maybe you’re counting them)
maybe they clap their wings together castanetas of myrtle branches
a-a-a-a
who’s your new squeeze
who’s that under your skin who’s riding you ragged getting a feel for you
who slipped her wedding rocks under our feet?
In the desert outside is inside
sky and stone come very close shut us in like a parched mouth