Barcelona
dark
pension hall
you approach
white and nervous
in dark drug alert
she killed you
the mother
stabbed that snake-slim tree
white flesh home
i have stroked
in infinite undoing
now you see her
in doorknobs
in dark hall
and in women,
their wombs
worn on their faces.
for the first time
you admit you are afraid.
i come toward you
candle held aloft
swathed in a black
wool cape, inside
naked –
today for the first time
i have surrendered.
in an hour
the belly swelled out
full and huge with death –
a sluggish bat
turns, urinates
in layered guana
bloating to the cavern walls.
my only centre,
his heavy dreaming meat
within.
you tell me you are crazy.
with candlelight
over black belly
i tell you silent
i am mary
mother of jesus
insanely doomed
to die with birth of god.
in all this
only the candle is alight
a hot storm
burns black rain
on barcelona;
ancient smells
incense the vapor
all is stark
doomed drama,
myth pinnacled to abyss
david, it was spain
and it was eternity
jesus in crashing drops
in tile courtyard
in urine smell
of barcelona
rising,
rain beating, falling
clean
and ancient
on sleeping barcelona
black grave in love
with the dead
dec. 1970, Barcelona