* * *

If there were another world: orange skies and purple flowers; tall languorous women waiting behind the bouganvillias, each with her own dark voice to send those low calls toward the night; and huge birds, bigger than ponies. soaring through the crimson skies; with bloodstone plumage and shadowy wings making windstorms as they passed.

and a soft succulent silence, and the low drifting calls of tall women, waiting behind the lattices; and piles of oranges in the streetstalls, piled higher than the houses, mangoes, melons, pineapples: all the sweet clear acid orange; and coconuts, and rich dark beer; canaries, mockingbirds and parrots jangling in the patio; caged flash of crimson or dark green; the jangling cries; and several suns setting all at once; violet ones and pale green; and then the honeysuckle dusk and women waiting, face in hand, behind the opened doors.