TO NANCY ON FOURTEENTH STREET
By Pablo Medina
Before the dust and pills,
before the toothless night of insects
and the half-light of the burning street
and all those men consoling you,
before the ship of fools
and the city of goats
and the gardens of Astoria
where we ate a brown lunch,
you stay in my memory
at the margin of an empty beach,
fibrillating siren with the smoky voice,
ball of sky, ball of flax, one stone,
one effigy, one razor blade.
before the toothless night of insects
and the half-light of the burning street
and all those men consoling you,
before the ship of fools
and the city of goats
and the gardens of Astoria
where we ate a brown lunch,
you stay in my memory
at the margin of an empty beach,
fibrillating siren with the smoky voice,
ball of sky, ball of flax, one stone,
one effigy, one razor blade.