Great spokes of darkness,
cypress shadows at sunset,
the trees themselves brushstrokes
that wheel and flow, dialling up
Santa Eufemia in the listening gaze
of citizens who’ve seen changes,
if not to this: a four-arched bower
decked with gardenias and braid
carried by boys becoming men
and heralded by itchy musicians
divorced from boyhood’s effigy;
the incense and the nicotine,
the candles lighted, loitering
as overhead the hawk watches
Plaza San Sebastian fill up, girls
eyeing those who pant and sweat;
parents, a few unphonable women
wrapped in experience, perched
heron-like on dry fountains.