Rewriting...

Lucky us

We are the lucky ones

standing here on dry ground, this

autumn Saturday, this Plaza Real

in  a reeling world. These are days

welded together,  slow motion moments

to pick  and choose and linger, cafés and

 train tickets, a simple mosaic or a labyrinth,

time breathing its magical chant over some

unfolding future.  I can  rebraid your hair

 with a hundred colored bands, invoke a

 thousand warm nights just like this one,

with its Mediterranean calm, with its

     welcome.  No use anyway trying to sleep

 with the neighbors  up talking so loud,

 no use trying to sleep now, with this late

knowledge that something as desperate

     to me

            as love

is but a moment of respite

is but a small, flattened clearing

that looks like a place to lie down.

Come closer, just for a moment.

I promise to stop talking, overlook the

details. There is a sweet jasmine smell

in the breeze, hours that taste like honey,

a trace of mint lingering in your hair.

I will stop asking these questions,

stop second-guessing my luck.

Wake up, peel those eyelids. The

  music is gentle now, the night so clear.

There is no pack of strays to follow you home,

there are no unlit corners where one split second

could change your life.

(Barcelona, 2009, revised 2015)