on which the lunar spring descends‚
blanching every shard with halo splendor,
chips of broken cones, sheen

Concerning the universe, the city of God,
we know very little.

People talk and talk more
about black holes.

When I enter the cemetery
of San Felice a Ema
I have to go past many tombstones

Winter trees cough like old men
about death’s white nightmares
while the rain talks in Latin.

   Waking in silence and, through tilted blinds,
the mark of red bougainvillea—pink light tossed
         at a white door. Out of sleep, I turn

A man in a mask and wearing a fat tank on his back is bent to the door of the
          parking garage.
He is spraying and wiping, wiping and spraying. Another man with no mask
          and no hair shuffle-dances around him,
gives a wave, crosses the street, tries to open the door to the hotel, which is
          locked and closed, darkened for good: