Once Upon a Time in Venice

I dreamed I was in Venice.

I was twenty

and lightning was my brother.

On my scarf a hand from the sky

had painted curious signs.

My hair smelled of tangerines

and my breasts of almost ripe lemons.

I was living in a small hotel,

its name erased by the thick fog.

At dawn, I'd wait for you on the embankment.

You were the merchant of pearls and myrrh.

Your lips had the taste of apples stored in hay,

your cheeks, the salt of tears mixed

with harbors and the open seas.

You always arrived in May

after a year or two of absence, or three.

I always asked you the same thing:

Where have you been these last two hours?

The gondola on which you used to ferry me

was heaped with azaleas and freesias, alive with red

and blue birds, and our bodiesdrunk on love,

on the supreme sensuality of the stars.

You never spoke,

letting your voyages take the place of speech,

and even sometimes of life.