Five Deaths

1.

There will be a few books with different titles
on the shelves,

houses where walls are painted
another color,

shelves put up in odd places, rooms
with the bad breath of old smoke;

there will be perhaps
a certain small sadness in the trees.

2.

When at last he saw you
yesterday, stepping out from the crowd

on the street, there were other recognitions
in his eyes,

that you saw perhaps
as he turned to walk away.

3.

Vallejo on his Paris deathbed
at dawn
crying out

To Spain!
I'm going to Spain!

To his mother's time,
where he would never age.

4.

Into a corner of his eye
when for a moment he let his guard down
the world flew, and lodged.

It grew there.  You could see
the level rising, always rising.

So much world
in this small globe —
too much, finally.

5.

His bicycle encrusted
with the white wax of old candles

and new ones flickering against
his robes and the night,

always riding back to the same thing,
coming to different conclusions.