Switched-on Gutenberg Volume 6 Number 2
Wish You Were Here
CARNEVALE

Venice

Indigo, opal, molten
gold the waters tonight.
The gondolier ferries the
moon between two
sinking palaces.

Stolen looks.
Under the sequined scarlet
the heart keeps its
dark counsel.

I shall follow the harlequin and princess into
shadowed alleys,
watch their secret commerce in the crumbling
doorway.

The sun has folded
its ruby sails.
The silent bridge steps resound
with tassels and feathers.

When the snow starts its slow

dance round the lamp-posts,
and the fiery sky weds the motley waters,
the canal will whisper,
"Unmask me..."


Copyright 2004,  Ruth Kessler

Ruth Kessler is an Israeli poet, fiction writer, and translator currently living in the U.S. Her poems have appeared recently in Seneca Review, Southern Poetry Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, The Evansville Review, The MacGuffin, and The Texas Observer.

 


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