Night showers wash the asphalt dragons,
water residues traced in puddles
and at four in the morning the language of myth
touches the edge of sidewalks.
At this place flames will soon erupt from the pharynx
and street will turn against street.
The red light will be the light of a paper lantern
and nightingales will soar from Chinese legends to those of tomorrow
Only, among the heart’s rocks
(of he who can fall in love
with the spreading spot
between the nail’s coastal plain and the fingers of a girl he
barely knows) will
the pink-frozen night of the air narcissus blossom.
Translated by Gabriel Levin