Dead from Love

To Margarita Manso

‘What is that gleaming
on the high galleries?’
‘My son, close the door,
eleven has just struck.’
‘Four unwelcome lamps
shine in my eyes.’
‘The people there must be
scouring copperware.’

*

Garlic of dying silver
the waning moon places
heads of yellow hair
on the yellow towers.
Trembling night knocks
on the glass of the balconies
pursued by the thousand
dogs that don’t know her,
and the smell of wine and amber
comes from the galleries.

*

Wet-reed breezes,
murmur of old voices
echoed through the round arch
of midnight.
Oxen and roses were sleeping.
Only four lights clamoured
in the galleries
raging like St George.
Sad women of the valley
took down the blood of man,
still as a cut flower
and bitter as a young thigh.
Old women of the river
wept at the foot of the mountain.
an impassable minute
of hair and names.
Fa£ades of lime made
the night white and square.
Seraphs and gypsies
played accordions.
‘Mother, when I die,
let the gentlemen know.
Send azure telegrams
from South to North.’

*

Seven shouts, seven bloods,
seven double poppies
smashed opaque moons
in the darkened rooms.
Full of cut hands
and coronets of flowers,
the sea of oaths
echoed who knows where.
And the sky slammed its door
on the sudden noise of the wood,
while lights clamoured
in the high galleries.