DESIRES

Tropics, why did you give me
these hands brimming with color?
Whatever I touch
brims over with sunlight.
I’ll pass through the delicate afternoons of other lands
with the sound of a glass sunflower.
Let me for one moment
stop being all noise and color.
Let me for one moment
change the climate of my heart,
soak up the half-light of some solitary thing,
lean out from a distant balcony in silence,
sink deep into the fine folds of my cloak,
be strewn upon the bank of a quiet passion,
softly caress the long straight hair
and write my reflections out with a fine pencil.
Oh, for one moment not to be
Field adjutant to the sun!
Tropics, why did you give me
these hands brimming with color!