To her disconsolate
I would give back
the hallowed porticos and blue
gardens. Yet, this side
of night, the gate has closed
between the towers
that guard the causeway,
and the road beyond
is a smear of moonlight upon water.

The room grates with the hollow
echoes of foreign voices
and the sounds of dragged
furniture. The mirrors
tremble on the walls
like the laughter of shrill
women. I sit at the desk,
the parts of my revolver
arranged on the blotter.

Simple as a figure in a woodcut
she waited on the brink
of the awful bed, in a landscape
under the jagged stars
printed with token thickets
of black roses. Mine was the face
her fingers found and touched
but could not read.

I am rubbing the blunt
head of each bullet
with metal-polish. And she
hunches on the edge of the sofa,
examining the knee of her stocking
for damage. Her face
is lost behind the damp
swags of her hair. The house
is being dismantled
with sounds like the lurch
of sluggish oars, phrase by phrase.

She does not ask now
the palace unspoiled. The white
stairway. The long-ago
afternoon air, pink as the wings
of ibis, spoonbill, flamingo.

She shakes her tousled curies,
stands before the looking-glass,
adjusts a bra-strap under her blouse.
A langorous gesture: poco animato .

Under my ineffable caress
(pin-striped marksman
in a jaunty fedora) her image
fractures. 0 white sister
of lilies, more sweet
than the Nile-green dawn,
love had you covered.
And you were too cute for words.