Her Ornate Laughter

In the depths of swollen cities
Meaning is discovered
Not in the old green houses
Flowing by the stream clogged with refuse
Nor in the warm leanings of dusk.
Meaning is found instead, in the severe
Yearnings, of her ornate laughter.

In this city, she
Clenches the evenings
Often distracted, often
Alone.
In her sleep she smiles
Her secrets hovering over the
Leaves of the trees under which
She walks, and squirrels
Gallop, through her ornate laughter.

If I were a pilgrim travelling
Towards those crevices of
Vanished cities, I would be assailed
Time and again, by the
Skepticism
Of her ornate laughter.

My language fails sometimes,
Beneath chrome canopies
Of a terrible modernity.
My heart seeks the comfort of
The torn shawl.
In these reflections of unequal pain,
I am solaced
By her ornate laughter.