Letter to Francisco Goya
With a bough of dusk broken off the night,
from a tree I do not understand,
I write you this letter, Francisco,
on the betrayal of my senses.
I am tormented by the smell of black,
like rats in decay.
Do you remember?
It lay on your doorstep.
It was hot, you left the window ajar
and all night you saw a ruddy landscape.
People in the distance.
Dust and tumult hung in the air,
that light steam of the red
with beads of clotted brown.
You wondered till dawn
if it was a carnival.