Night Song

        Under deaf and sun-smeared turquoise,
        his head high in the blinding gilt-glare,
        sunflower-faced, the solitary figure toils,
        dead slow, along the whitewashed wall—
        mile after mile of cruel adobe spite.
        His filthy robe trails weightlessly behind;
        the hem, floating on still air, scatters
        drifts of pastel confetti, bloody tears.
        His long since vacant eyes locked on the sun,
        his path brittle-bright and pitiless,
        he recounts the names of the dead, keening
        the night song to an indifferent star.


from Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems
© 2007 Denis M. Garrison