Three Poems By Heart

II can't find the titleof a memory about youwith a hand torn from darknessI step on fragments of facessoft friendly profilesfrozen into a hard contourcircling above my headempty as a forehead of aira man's silhouette of black

Iliving—despiteliving—againstI reproach myself for the sin of forgetfulnessyou left an embrace like a superfluous sweatera look like a questionour hands won't transmit the shape of your handswe squander them touching ordinary thingscalm as a mirrornot mildewed with breaththe eyes will send back the questionevery day I renew my sightevery day my touch growstickled by the proximity of so many thingslife bubbles over like

Shadows gently meltlet us not allow the dead to be killed—perhaps a cloud will transmit remembrance—a worn profile of Roman

Ithe women on our streetwere plain and goodthey patiently carried from the marketsbouquets of nourishing vegetablesthe children on our streetscourge of catsthe pigeons—softly graya Poet's statue was in the parkchildren would roll their hoopsand colorful shoutsbirds sat on the Poet's handread his silenceon summer evenings wiveswaited patiently for lipssmelling of familiar tobaccowomen could not answertheir children: will he returnwhen the city was settingthey put the fire out with handspressing their eyesthe children on our streethad a difficult deathpigeons fell lightlylike shot down airnow the lips of the Poetform an empty horizonbirds children and wives cannot livein the city's funereal shellsin cold eiderdowns of ashesthe city stands over watersmooth as the memory of a mirrorit reflects in the water from the bottomand flies to a high starwhere a distant fire is burninglike a page of the Iliad