A Pushcart at the Curb Part 12

II

The full moon soars above the misty street filling the air with a s.h.i.+mmer of silver.

Roofs and chimney-pots cut silhouettes of dark against the milk-washed sky!

O moon fast waning!

Seems only a night ago you hung a shallow cup of topaz-colored gla.s.s that tilted towards my feverish dry lips brimful of promise in the flaming west: O moon fast waning!

And each night fuller and colder, moon, the silver has welled up within you; still I I have not drunk, only the salt tide of parching desires has welled up within me: only you have attained, waning moon.

The moon soars white above the stony street, wan with fulfilment. O will the tide of yearning ebb with the moon's ebb leaving me cool darkness and peace with the moon's waning?

_Madrid_

III

The shrill wind scatters the bloom of the almond trees but under the bark of the s.h.i.+vering poplars the sap rises and on the dark twigs of the planes buds swell.

Out in the country along soggy banks of ditches among busy sprouting gra.s.s there are dandelions.

Under the asphalt under the clamorous paving-stones the earth heaves and stirs and all the blind live things expand and writhe.

Only the dead lie still in their graves, stiff, heiratic, only the changeless dead lie without stirring.

Spring is not a good time for the dead.

_Battery Park_

IV

Buildings shoot rigid perpendiculars latticed with window-gaps into the slate sky.

Where the wind comes from the ice crumbles about the edges of green pools; from the leaping of white thighs comes a smooth and fleshly sound, girls grip hands and dance grey moss grows green under the beat of feet of saffron crocus-stained.

Where the wind comes from purple windflowers sway on the swelling verges of pools, naked girls grab hands and whirl fling heads back stamp crimson feet.

Buildings shoot rigid perpendiculars latticed with window-gaps into the slate sky.

Garment-workers loaf in their overcoats (stare at the gay b.r.e.a.s.t.s of pigeons that strut and peck in the gutters).

Their fingers are bruised tugging needles through fuzzy hot layers of cloth, thumbs roughened twirling waxed thread; they smell of lunchrooms and burnt cloth.

The wind goes among them detaching sweat-smells from underclothes making muscles itch under overcoats tweaking legs with inklings of dancetime.

b.u.ms on park-benches spit and look up at the sky.

Garment-workers in their overcoats pile back into black gaps of doors.

Where the wind comes from scarlet windflowers sway on rippling verges of pools, sound of girls dancing thud of vermillion feet.

_Madison Square_

V

The stars bend down through the dingy plat.i.tude of arc-lights as if they were groping for something among the houses, as if they would touch the gritty pavement covered with dust and sc.r.a.ps of paper and piles of horse-dung of the wide deserted square.

They are all about me; they sear my body.

How very cold the stars are touching my body.

What do they seek the fierce ice-flames of the stars in the plat.i.tude of arc-lights?

_Plaza Mayor, Madrid_

VI

Not willingly have I wronged you O Eros, it is the bitter blood of joyless generations making my fingers loosen suddenly about the full gla.s.s of purple wine for which my dry lips ache, making me turn aside from the wide arms of lovers that would have slaked the rage of my body for supple arms and burning young flushed faces to wander in solitary streets.

A funeral clatters over the glimmering cobbles; they are burying despair!

Lank horses whose raw bones show through the embroidered black caparisons and whose heads jerk feebly under the tall nodding crests; they are burying despair.

A great hea.r.s.e that trundles crazily along under pompous swaying plumes and intricate designs of mud-splashed heraldry; they are burying despair!

A coffin obliterated under the huge folds of a faded velvet pall and following clattering over the cobblestones lurching through mud-puddles a long train of cabs rain-soaked barouches old landaus off which the paint has peeled leprous coupes; in their blank windows s.h.i.+nes the glint of interminable gaslamps; they are burying despair!

Joyously I turn into the wineshop where with strumming of tambourines and staccato cackle of castanets they are welcoming the new year, and I look in the eyes of the woman; (are they your wide eyes O Eros?) who sits with wine-dabbled lips and stained tinsel dress torn open by the brown hands of strong young lovers; (were they your brown hands O Eros?).

--Your flesh is hot to my cold hands hot to thaw the ice of an old curse now that with pomp of plumes and strings of ceremonial cabs they are burying despair.

She laughs and points with a skinny forefinger at the flabby yellow b.r.e.a.s.t.s that hang over the tarnished tinsel of her dress, and shows me her brown wolf's teeth; and the blood in my temples goes suddenly cold with bitterness and I know it was not despair that they buried.

_New Year's Day--Casa de Bottin_

VII

The leaves are full grown now and the lindens are in flower.

Horseshoes leave their mark on the sun-softened asphalt.

Men unloading vegetable carts along the steaming market curb bare broad chests pink from sweating; their wet s.h.i.+rts open to the last b.u.t.ton cling to their ribs and shoulders.

The leaves are full grown now and the lindens are in flower.

At night along the riverside glinting watery lights sway upon the lapping waves like many-colored candles that flicker in the wind.

The warm wind smells of pitch from the moored barges smells of the broad leaves of the trees wilted from the day's long heat; smells of gas from the last taxicab.

Sounds of the riverwater rustling circ.u.mspectly past the piers of bridges that span the glitter with dark of men and women's voices many voices mouth to mouth smoothness of flesh touching flesh, a harsh short sigh blurred into a kiss.

The leaves are full grown now and the lindens are in flower.

_Quai Malaquais_