THE NAP
Leaving the alluvial city
when clerks were napping in the fly-blown hockshops
we came by boat to a deep bay
where sunlight gleamed on the brittle waters
A hawk folded and was dying down the wind
falling away
Before his wings changed we dove side by side
I watch the water break from your arms
sliding away
I feel the breathing
the air shrinking in my body
Then I breathe out the last of it
And it no longer matters
We are too deep to care
For seven nights
I have come to this city
crossing from the new quarter to the old
by a certain routine they carry out
without my knowing
It is never as I had remembered
Smoke pouring from ships in the harbor
blowing always
into the old city
stuffing the cries of the water-hawkers
