the weight of happiness
 sorrowed with the memory of joy.
 time repentless, littered
 puts two and two together
 dangles itself before itself
 drags itself behind

 until. silence and stillness
 pull the cords of desire
 in river-eaten cities find
 dead men cowered under brown leaves
 smoking and trembling at
 the miasma of starlight,
 awaiting Explanation.

 i held my life as such a thing
 a _bandoneón_-image, a cantilevered bridge
 red and white, meaningful only in sleep.
 the gods have abandoned my life
 where the child is gone up in smoke
 and cars wipe acid rain from windows
 to st james infirmary
 to celluloid repose
 to inkiness
 immortal, fading clot of my tainted night

 your writing desk, home your 16 papers:
 feathery evidence
 _cantando só teus olhos_
 here abandoned from the sun
 yellow after rain.

 dull clock noises, the bird
 goes on limping, sits on my shoulder
 continues my spanish lessons
 and i will teach it how to fire a gun
 tú, tú