Only three in the restaurant and an azure lull
of men’s voices amid wooden slats. I asked for caffé
and was told the origins of names on street walls.
After landing, searching among faces that weren’t
yours, I found two coins thrown backwards
near the piazza intersection. There you were
in the hotel lobby, that gaze I couldn’t read, red-lips
filling the gaps between what you left out. We drank
Slivovitz. I remembered I would never see you again.
The rest is ablaze, and now I arch back into the red,
a sun before the sun, without a name, whose plunging
lands itself in my hands lain flat. Left over right,
forefinger and thumb into your cat’s eye glasses,
not knowing how to speak to a black veil. I asked
if it was possible to empty out a question completely
and was taught how to write it down. The weight of the
air split open the heat: I was told to eat more
and bought a copy of Moby Dick instead.