This music is the country you lost
when you were born,
the cafe which never closes, the *** which
comes so close your pores are
weeping with longing, and never touches you,
the nights you don't sleep, the hands in their ceaseless
moving like birds, the conversations interrupted
only by dancing, the dancers weeping with their bodies
painted like eyes,
here where black coffee and red wine are the only
waters, where crusty bread and creamy cheese
flecked with oregano and pooling tears of olive oil
are the only foods.
It's the music you strain to hear through all the needy
ordinary days,
the music which will only stop
when you abandon everything to follow it
--because this music lies to you, but it's a gorgeous lie,
full of such craving and entreaty, the chance for nothing
to be ordinary, ever