A winding road and hairpin turns
raise the volcanic tuff plateau higher and higher
along crumbling, overgrown barriers, right up to the gates
of the city that will awaken later in the afternoon

in front of the cathedral in disbelief
you momentarily close your eyes and the gold
of a whole bygone era spreads across your eyelids

tempered light, yellow like wine
falls through the marble windowpane corpses, with a nervature
of charred lightning shafts, of lifetimes that had run
their courses centuries ago, of tide lines, blood
gushing upward and streaming underground, that stranded
in the mountains, that buried itself there –

someone brings a bouquet for the grave, profuse
with green and calla lilies, to the side chapel, where praying
out loud and a little too loose-lipped is forbidden

a hearse with drooping pennants pulls into
the cathedral square, squandering the enormous power of its
engine on the transport of a simple coffin, the requiem
is about to be dedicated

four pilasters, framed by tendrils of grape
and leaves of acanthus, exhibit a series of sculpted
Biblical scenes – you look for your face on the earliest day
among the multitude of the doomed –
you haven’t found it, as yet