De Profundis


                                                  by the fiberglass statue of aphrodite

                                                  at the swimming-pool’s edge

                                                  she watches the invisible children appear

                                                  and disappear like wraiths, their shapes

                                                  echoed in the silhouetted palms of hotel windows

                                                  in the ballet of flies above the garbage cans

                                                  behind chinese restaurants, under ceiling fans

                                                  their voices curl through vases of cut flowers,

                                                  the steam that coils on a teacup’s lip, where

                                                  buses stop, they wheel about her

                                                  like a bitter wind, rearranging dead leaves

                                                  into forms in the air and later, in

                                                  the television's blue light

                                                  her elbows jutting against vacant glass

                                                  she watches the rain sweep sideways, only she

                                                  and the neon of late night supermarkets

                                                  she and the rain-black road, the tiny weight

                                                  of an empty hand