He stood naked at one of two windows
she kept open in all weathers in her corner
room at the back of the bread building

as the sun rose he watched a man pulling
a handcart along the narrow alley
“below here, the moans”

and across the court a girl turning
her face from side to side in a mirror—
“aren’t those sweet those questionings?”

From the temples around the stone plaza
he could hear the first matins
and to the west low clouds
shifted beyond the dulled bronze Domes of The Church

she begins slicing small pieces of bread
goat butter and chives start to fry  
she is naked kneeling on one worn rug
thrown at an angle across the scarred floor

this is a reminder

she glances up at him and he smiles nodding
for no real reason in spite of the bells’
chime and the tanks crisscrossing the city

How the fingers
form a fist,
the wood chair hits

the upper portion of the wall.
For each minute
that passes the more and less

normal time soothed it becomes,
the spillway opens
on to the canal—

guilt tunnels through
much more than the actual
blow, the wasp of words.

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