LOIS P. JONES

He Seeks Her at the Pasaje de la Piedad

With eyes closed the night remembers.
Only in the dance did we move
as we loved--you arching like a sunflower
of golden silk, a cortina to cover my sorrows.

If our limbs spoke, a song kept our secrets—
deeper than a thirst for flesh in the loneliest monk.
In the smoke of the milonga, your face
a bone of anguish, a ballad from a distant bandoneón.
It is my last memory before I released you
to the stars.

This is how it has always been.
I stumble along these wet cobbles like a dark coin
of longing. And the sky, black as jade,
tumbles down, from the hands of a god.


Note: Pasaje de la Piedad (Passage of Mercy).