Oriana in New York

So little
was the warrior, how she held out

her slimmed down arms
to the flowers I carried
and to all that which crumbled
in such a theatrical New York evening

she was lovely and bright, drinking
the last of the champagne to avoid
that burning in her throat - 

And she raised her clear eyes
tearful but not weeping, bold, alone
divining with her torment’s radar
the fires

the sand-grain shouting
that assails us now...

She was working on her rage,
                the morning
that I left her in discord
and friendship on the stairs
she was a statue of the guilds
in the portal of a luminous
Florentine cathedral yet to come