Watching you in the doorway, flanked
by the famille verte vases, your long legs
angled in the sunlight that blazes
through the flowers of your dress, I see

again the engineer's twin daughters.
They wait beside the tracks, their frocks
and bonnets heaped at their feet, the desert

sun contracted to a fiery rag of cloud.
I have devoted a lifetime to bartering, but
never for a concatenation the likes of this:
my terracotta busts, my embroidered birds

of paradise, my green and white vases,
and you, propped against the daylight,
nourishing the vision of the two girls.

In your imagined warm damp crevices,
raspberry-tender, they are whispering, waiting
for the heavy-handed smoke and oil and iron.
I live in the clutter of the Old World,

but there beside those molten rails
even the dust is new. Arroyos of cottonwoods
catch fire, the flame invisible in the sunlight.

The girls lick their teeth and gaze demurely
down. The desert swallows have nested
under the eaves of their young bellies.
And when you step outside into the busy

light of day, I will not have breathed a word.
Up from the charred hills the lightning
whistles like a ragged razor slash.