See that stern castle? It was once a great old whorehouse. Now, all alone, empty, closed for centuries, no boat anchor; it's unmarked. It might even in some ways be seen as a lonely casa in a graveyard, for over here, on this side not far from the cemetery the merry daylight of death is always waving its tear-stained flag. Still, vain, dreamy, defamed and the victim of a lost fortune, this place is a sentry to the flesh-grinding profits of the pirates who smiled beautifully and lived filled with noise while trying to avoid the Bridge of Sighs. Stout women once leaned out of those windows purring like motorboats, waving to sailors passing below in narrow boat after narrow boat -- long slender nice-looking narrow boats. If we were to glide by now, very close to the dock, we would hear the echoes of an enchanted though bruised life; peculiar in its solitude, while thoughtless in its sentimental enthusiasm. As we go by out here, far from it, without moral peril, in our vaporetto, we are travelers, far too far from those decorated windows to catch even the ghosts of kisses thrown, for centuries, down from them. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARIZONA POEMS: 2. MEXICAN QUARTER by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER THE SOLDIER by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS by FRANCIS HOPKINSON THE NEW EZEKIEL by EMMA LAZARUS RETURNED FROM THE WAR by HENRY ABBEY ODE 13. ON THE CHARMS OF PEACE by BACCHYLIDES |