Poem: The Last Days of the Year

Sometimes the days must

fly by

as they say,

one year palms

inhabited by wind and rain,

the wet smell of wool

in the Berber markets,

the next our room

on Isola Tiberina

off the little Piazza

San Bartolomeo, river-damp

with the river patrol

at the point, waiting

to drag out the suicides

and driftwood.

Above Italy

the skyline is cypress,

black imago pressed

against the pale mauve

of Roman winter sunset.

You’re out looking

for something in the shops

off the Corso and I’m sitting over

the Tiber, remembering that

one night last year

I went deep into the markets

of Marrakesh to find

the little birds

made from the green

malachite of the Atlas.

You must have sat like this

over your mint tea thinking

about other years

at home, your mother

and her mother baking together

and cleaning the silver

with the special paste

that is one of the

remembered decorations;

you must have thought

I’d been gone a long time,

waiting as it got later,

as I wait now

for you, the same sounds

of the cars outside, passing by.

[from Seasonal Rights]