In Venice

Stillness in the passing night of the room.

Seven silver branches flicker

before the whispered song

of the deserted,

the mystic flock of roses.

A swarm of flies, black as smoke,

swallows up the stony space,

and from the anguish

of golden days the head

of the homeless child gazes back.

The frozen sea fills with night.

The one star and the dark journey

have vanished in the ditch.

Child, your ailing smile

haunts me, wordless, in sleep.