The Ladies of Dona Sofia

This poem is in the latest "The Seventh Quarry" and I can heartily recommend the magazine to all.

THE LADIES OF DONA SOFIA

One by one the ladies of Dona Sofia
hatch from shuttered sleep, look up,
smell the spent storm, red with sunrise
and African dust, moving its rucksack
of cloud, towards the Sierra Bermeja.

Out they come, tentative, like pupae
unspun prematurely from chrysalides,
each touched gently by the sun moving
across the apartment block face.
Sessile dolls suddenly wrenched free

their limbs rejoicing, they clean balconies.
This is a synchronous choreography;
a bulerias where all hear the rhythm,
know the steps, feel the beat; all hold
the seed of sorrow close to their heart.

Each one cloths a window’s damp smear,
as if waving desperate goodbye
to a lover, until a pin sharp reflection
emerges, like a magic painting,
in which each, in sequence, see blue sky,

apartment blocks, ladies cleaning windows.
Tonight these imagos will metamorphose
their drab for Mass; they will imagine
sins to commit, finger beads for Nostra Senora
de la Rosaria, scrub clean their souls.