Postcard, with New Moon and Big Dipper

Of course it's fixed forever
in a time of blue hills and fog:
a screen of heat reflecting off
tin roofs, a composition rehearsed 
day after day by rain. Of course 
nights were always lined 
with the cries of vendors 
and hungry children, smells 
of diesel and human waste 
floating on water beneath 
the bridge. The roads
slipped through rocks 
and cypress groves. And we, 
formerly devout in childhood, 
repeated saints' names in sleep 
and on waking, and signed 
spit crosses on the tops 
of aching feet. Only much 
later and far away from that shore 
did we marvel at the way the moon 
could shine like the perfect 
white curve of a French manicure, 
at stars that tilted from the weight
of invisible waters kept pouring
everything we thought we wanted 
into our upturned mouths.