In Montezuma the aspens sleep under sun and snow,
and in my dreams now half a decade old
Father Sky still smiles upon the sunburned land.

*

I do not look back to the alabaster city,
else tears and stars would mingle
on the furrows of the flag.

*

We will not tell tall tales, only truths:
how Our Father forced us down, not to dust
but to the wet earth of the polders
where we had been conceived.

*

Who sleeps beside me with his arms around me?

*

I drink; I make tears;
and on the silks of eventide
I bleed as bright as poppies.

*

The saints of earlier days will envy us our earthly love.