La Señora

The steps down were the most fearful, but she enteredthe clanging train each morning, ankles full of water,

and tried to gulp down the day as if it were her last;she pondered again the morning's words: "we shall all

be changed, changed utterly": hope droppedinto her hands: listening, Rodrigo's notes, bursting

from his darkness, sang in her heart: she was bornfor Valencia, not this stinging dustbin of chewed gum

and urine, the left-overs of moles whose ride is a flightinto shadows. She wanted a royal mantilla and a sun

she'd gallop with down to the sea: bones to combatchance, ankles to fit and arms bathed in cream;

then she'd lift her new voice in praise of the saintsand kneel at the high bell: cloisters would arch

her beauty; the sky would open and soft dust swirlaround her feet to glint the day. The train slowed

as she lifted her packages and walked out againwhere she could not run and searched the passage

for a herald she prayed was there but could not hear.