MARIA DEL CARMEN PAIVA
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MIDDAY, REVERIES

I hear the murmur of flowers:
they spring up from the forgotten spaces,
near the orange tree.
They exhale golden smoke of pure sun
They put to sleep the ashes of siesta
and cover my hot bed.

Voices that flow
from a secret river.

Flowers of ancient blood,
of sleeping skeletons,
of precipitous fugues
and other ephemeral madnesses.

I turn around and the sheets twist around me,
an undefined annoyance enters me.
I go where the lilies
and the well filled with leaves
to lighten the exhaustion of my lips,
so I wonOt fall asleep in this squandered strength.