The white flowers now are resting

On my guitar case in the hall

The flute we bought in Marrakesh

No longer plays at all

The trains are urging caution

To victims heading north

The tango band disbanded December 24^th

Titania in her element

Is figuring all alone

Two partners, one familiar

The other quite unknown

Contradictions that once buoyed her

Irreconcilable at home

Close domestic harmonies

Eclipse the wandering refrain

Whispering of the desert

And the passions of the rain

I cannot take confession

The haunting comes too soon

Your kind of absolution

Is a function of the moon

Drum pulses splashing as a wave

Upon unyielding rock

The rover’s stranded silences

The merchant taking stock

The disappointed rover

Cannot unpick that lock

I have not come here, friend, to look

At the sights that fill your book

But to reap the rigour of the heart

And put the sun back in my art

Koutoubia’s bulbuls bask in palms

Clipped orange trees in fruit

Oh but to sleep here long enough

To end this vain pursuit

As

She

Untangles tangos

Along her tourists’ routes

In the market of the spices

Painter Jacques Majorelle’s sea blue

They’re bumping up the prices

I’ll bring some home to you