A melody that lives but once

Delilahville

The women move like curtains in Amalfi, rouged as robust
figs, ripe as the unhurried sea. They move across sheets
of wind like cursive over fine parchment, looped and lilted
in the handless alphabets of their sheer curves. Such is
the manner of light on water, pressed but never touching.



In soft armadas, mizzened windows sail their high faces in
painted fleets as mountains prow the edge of the skirting sky.
There is dance in the village, the thousand scents of intrigue
and hunger spilling down stone cobbleways. This is a night
for golden calves and myrrh-oiled hair, vertiver skin tamboured
with the essential glisten of distant promise two worlds away.



Moor among these peerless women and lose yourself to
all that remains yet possible. Do not marry the false brides
of your own name for none here will remember it. Give
yourself a steep anonymity and cast away whatever cane
the fates may afford you. This is how history is born.



“Where are you from?” is no longer a relevant passport.
Sing instead a melody that will live but once in your mouth
and forever be lost. This is how legend is born. It lives but one
night and never speeds the day. It pulls veils across the senses,
amplifies everything that echoes from surrender and reconquer.
This is how your present is born. Live it then alive, and live.

Joseph Gallo
January 30, 2007