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This afternoon, here in this desert heat,
At this languid moment, when punctuation dies on my paper,
Half-awake from a siesta (this heat, glasses of lemonade),
I see Neruda's head looking at me in askance from
Across the room with his flint-sheer eyes.
Resting uneasily on the window sill,
Now breaking into a smile,
Wobbling about in an imaginary axis,
Showing off the blood-red hollow circle of
Dead human flesh
Where the torso once joined the head in motions
And reactions and endless ailments.
"I have been lucky" he growls
Not paying any attention to my discomfort.
"I at least I kept my head", he chuckles.
A cemetery smell fills the room, I choke.
"Think of those who died starving.
Who were stretched across a cot,
Cut off with a blade for speaking their mind."
My ears reverberate in an uneasy echo.
Pushing away childhood nightmares,
I check my Agnostic's clock.
The satin pillow case tickled, the sleep's season lost
I stretched myself to the oblivion of reality.
The window stayed opened to the empty world,
Still bearing the moist marks of dead human flesh.
