THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA

I was in Barcelona

late one Spring

when an insistent twilight

smoked me out

of my monastic hotel room

into the street.

I found myself

snared by the feral smell

of some amazing strange music

pulsing like a bull-ring

with singing and stamping.

My shy feet

were their usual lead

but I felt each rap

from the dancing crowd

reverberate in my breast

as if my own heart

were breaking into sparks

on a white-hot anvil.

There was only one dancer

who truly mesmerised me –

an aristocratically pale

young girl

caught in the rip of the music

as she dragged one foot behind her

in a misshapen boot.

I stayed

until dark

when the music stopped

and the dancers

slipped away.

I live my life

to live these moments

like living in waiting

for the smell

the uncanny smell

of the star-scorched flank

of the horsehead nebula

as she rises

in a stampede of hot music

from my boot-dragging dark.