Daggers Glimmer and Shine Like Fish
Fig trees, falling stars, the sighing of the sea
Engaged you in your cradle through an open window.
Deep red the roses, deep red the Virgin’s happy tears
Entering the parchment walls of your nursery—
Rumored to be the site of sprite springs
under the dry ground of the vega;
I know it’s true, though I wasn’t there to offer frankincense & myrrh; I was
Cantos of clouds away, across the craters
Of the moon, on a sleeping horse whose wings
were incubating.
Green, I hoped they’d be, like yours, your olive groves,
your green guitar—
Andalusia’s most perfectly pitched instrument—
Raising the volume of the blood in the sand,
Carrying saint songs to the stalactite heights of the cathedrals.
In widowed doorways, in the shadows of the Civil Guard,
Arrows you sent to pierce solitude, sorrow, wind and death—
Lizard-like, persistent, dark as midnight in the English woods
behind the Court of the Lions,
On lonely gypsy mountains, bowed over the balconies
of Granada,
Resplendent death, like a fever in your eyes—
Clear, surprised, full of phantoms & the mysteries of love.
Angel of Fuentevaqueros, pray for us now—
we who’ve staked everything on your smile and your wave.