(After Lorca)

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.

There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.

There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.

Remember that afternoon?
You were smoking your Winston and you told me that I have this weird type of charm.

And we're kinda sad because we have to hide our hands again the next day. We have to hide our photos,
we have to hide our words.

I remember you saying you'll commit when you're ready,
you just need time to figure things out.

I didn't question your reasons.
I didn't asked you why or how is that even possible if you love someone.

And the moment you left three years later, you said the exact same thing.

This town never changed since that afternoon.

But we did.

Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”

That week was so hot,
every shotgun house gasped,
windows flung,
porch doors unlatched like unbuttoned shirts.

Touching skin felt like punishment
at first,
then penance,
then prayer.

We were thin, androgynous,
switching cut-off jeans,
sharing tank tops,
slick with sweat and shaved ice.

Strays ourselves,
barefoot thieves,
pirates of the quarter.

Hibiscus syrup stained our mouths
outside the Prytania,
where The Abyss flickered
and you cried like a boy
pretending he didn’t.

Inside your walk-up,
we dipped into quiet love
like bread in stew.

A dusty radio murmured The Ink Spots,
which I recognized but couldn’t name.
You mouthed every note like a secret
you wanted me to guess.

Faint smiling lines near your eyes
from knowing,
like you'd seen me
long before we met,
and were waiting
for the world to catch up.

Not woman,
not man,
just two bodies
leaning toward the same heat.

I wouldn't see your fall or your winter.
When the seasons change,
I’ll be gone,
back home,
watching rain from a train window,
each drop undoing what we were.

That last night,
you placed your key by the door.
I saw it,
watched it glint,
and said nothing.

The snails were climbing.
The air was too sweet.
You slept through goodbye.
I left the key where it lay.

I.
Box fans and mowers drone below,
distant traffic murmurs through summer’s heat.
Memory presses: teeth and old thunder.
Regret. Punishment. Hope. Repeat.

My ears ring with histories,
sometimes cicadas, sometimes sermons,
sometimes her humming, barefoot by the creek,
sometimes the sting of my father’s belt.

Sunlight slants through bloated magnolia leaves,
thick as tongues,
slick with old rain.
It stains the walls with a color like yolk,
like aging joy.

II.
I wake in moonlight,
before the rumble.
Step barefoot onto concrete
still warm from the last sun.

The sky is full of stubborn stars,
hung from the last funeral.
I watch. I wait.
No birds yet. No breeze.
I stay.

I tell myself this is peace.
But the silence knows better.