Softly He Sings

It is cooler on the veranda. Below us a guitar translates the aroma of an Andalusian night. Orchids unroll their purple tongues in an arbor of moonlight. Starlight flickers in the eyes of sleeping dogs. We had quarreled earlier; I lower my head in her lap letting the dark between us drift away. Somewhere, a young man is singing of the sea; the way it cries for the kiss of the shore, how the sand runs to be drowned - we both understand. She leaves to lie on the bed. Later, sangria washes salt from our lips.