funeral poem

as i lie roofed in, screened in
fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room
the dawn was apple-green
high walls and huge
out of the deep and the dark
we who stood
there was a time in former years
when night drifts along the streets of the city
i have come into the desert because my soul is athirst
for these white arms about my neck
i saw you hunched and shivering on the stones
the single clenched fist lifted and ready