THE STONE HOUSE Poem by Andrea Cote

It was common
and dull
and peeved
that gesture
with which we turned our backs to the stone house of my father
to wave flowery skirts
of light
in our dried up port.

For the first time
and without a nurse
we skirted the arcade of the afternoon,
all of that not to see
the hands of stone of my father,
darkening everything,
grasping everything,
his words of stone
and hail
raining on the garden of the drought.

And we running away toward whitened streets
and the noon time show
and they repeating
in the door of stone:
fourteen years old,
short skirts,
red unused shoes.

We were eager for music
and splendor
and juggling,
facing the shiny sidewalk,
before we stayed put
and voiceless
to see the desolate print,
the ruins.

For it is the silence
and not the bustle of the days
that goes through.
The silence,
which is thirty two coffins
empty and white.