All this rain in the place where it rarely rains.
Eyes trained on the sky as if for smoke,
as if for news of the next doddering pope.

It always comes down to God. To God
and money. At cross-purposes across borders
penciled in: rain-blurred on a backseat.

Balkan backlighting over a valley of bad roads
driven too fast to get through. Pencil lines.
Treaties that last two days or two hours.

What lasted a week last week: the export
of low-grade silver, an exchange of embassies.
What is finally the fireflies’ was first the roses’.

What a woman knew better than to do, she did.
Worlds of rock and sand, across which
she walked barefoot by the Black Sea.