Noon with its white horse and houses of plague,
evening with its shrouded owls. Biology
of illusions. Everything we wear and shed
and shoot, borrowed from the ransacked past.
Domes of churches glow pink in the sunset,
made beautiful by all these curtains of smog.
In their shadow, vendors with oily trays
of beads and amulets. There used to be a zoo
somewhere in the heart of the old city:
emaciated elephants, drying pools where
they kept a mermaid dressed in verdigris.
I wanted to ask her how to tune this instrument
that seems designed for continuous mourning.
I wanted to ask her about how to be in two
places at once: the heart swishing in
a mason jar, the womb-space bluing the water.
In response to Via Negativa: Circadian.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.