DWELLING PLACES III (11) Poem by António Franco Alexandre

when they wake up, they'll ask
by what presage, what carelessness
this imprint of a hand was left
on the stone cliff.
A hunting ritual? A way to bring rains
from far lands, where the shroud of complete

solitude dissipates? It could be that
I've made ignorance into the most exact
form of memory, or that these delusions are enough
for me as the stiff blowing wind whines louder
in my bicycle, or that the brain, slapped together,
is the missing part in the clock,

the extra letter in the earth that guides us
to the lighthouse.