Cyndi Gacosta

In one drawn out breath…


Darkness into darkness a dream takes form
On the calm of a filthy sea
Darker than ink, dense like palm oil, littered with sewage
At its shore residents undress and bathe along the drifting boats
Linen, rags, scarves, tunics are washed, wrung then hung
On clothing lines where rugs are beaten with sticks
Its dust particles like sandstorms blocking the view of the road
Thick with mud and manure, where stray dogs huddle
Road has only one direction ascending, every level changing
Barefoot pedestrians and bicyclists pass another in narrowed alleys
Of the glassless panes of limestone houses
In stifling heat the sound of wooden chimes, there, carcasses swing on hooks
With their stench they bring an audience: children like flies with hunger
And their eyes descend to the black pools beneath them
Bare feet bathed in black blood,
All lines of a foot remain on a changing road, mud to sand to concrete
All lines of a foot imprint its portrait and scent in grass, ash and snow
Alive and hot with blood running in its soil
As nature unravels:
The road, soft from a cloudless shower, cuts straight the grasses
Of mulberry-colored blades, carpets of bright yellow corollas
As minute birds sew nests with strips of twigs and wool
Then behind the cattail walls
A lake where a paradise of mysteries haunts adrift
In silence broken by flutter and flaps of unseen birds
A variation of songs and sonatas
Of bustling leaves, of monarchs’ wings,
Of swaying trees clouded by webs, and patches of thawing snow