The Sirocco in Leonia

Owing to the debilitating despair 
it annually inflicts 
on young and old, Christians and heretics,
masters and slaves,

nothing is written
and nothing is known for sure
about Leonia's Sirocco.
Nobody had the courage to write it down.

A handful of fingers
scrabbles in a panic, spiderlike
down the keyboard
to the space-bar, paralyzed.

We can only suppose
brains gone dark, empty streets,
the shrieking sky, 
the loneliness.

		* * *

Morning sun startles a flock of shadows
from the date-palm tree across the beach 
to shimmering nonexistence in the air,
a hiss of fish on coals, a squeaky bicycle,
two lovers hand in hand,
strolling along the old corniche.