(Italian sonnet)

The sun arched high and hot in tropic reach,
missing the narrow alley in shadowed brown.
Weary flats, replete with drab and run-down,
present their dingy windows to the breach
while slouching gloomily atop rows of shops.
Below, broken-wheeled carts stand abuzz with flies.
By one constricted sidewalk, curbstones lie,
offering rotted fruit and leafy slops.

On this quiet sunless street in Havana town
a girl of splendid beauty came in my view,
clad white in lacy wedding residue
sans veil or train, holding hem of silken gown
thus ‘vealing creamy satin-coated shoes
besmirched with watery muck in spatters thick
from beau trap pavement stones glist’ning slick
‘mid beads of reeking catamenian ooze.

Emotion absent, and coiffured head held high -
in graceful movement along that darkened street -
the bride-sheathe passed in silence like a butterfly.