One night in Portugal, alone in a forlorn
village at twilight, escaping her parents,
she saw a full moon baptized on the water

Monuments: They arrest the eye
like these twin tongues of ruddy stone
adorning Basel’s riverside.

During the screened-porch dinner of corn on the cob,
pork chops, tomatoes like red meat, warm and bleeding,
I felt the first stirring. The air moved, cracked the damp

You will not discover in my dying body’s kidneys’ yield, who.
All your theory of that and the other is false. Nor is any
woman simple. We encompass men before they’re birthed

I have forgotten my name. I am not Borges
(Borges died at La Verde, under fire)
Nor am I Acevedo, dreaming of battle,

    Lack-luster      We told them these were our “long, empty
     friends and     hours” and that we’d nap or primp,
acquaintances     but instead we rose to all the trappings

Into Miami at night then out over gulf island and jungle

We had traveled so fast that we arrived
on the right bank of the RÍo de la Plata

When the man can’t sleep, he builds
a matchstick replica of Auschwitz
in his basement, working from memory.

I had a dream so pure of form
it slipped intact from the dark:

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? 
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air—
an armful of white blossoms,