Malnourished Rainbow

Portuguese capital of clothing lines,
drying your streets of poverty,
women of smiles worthy of watching over
tides and hills that slip
with each step, approaching your
untouchable light;

this decayed wall, surrounded by
the constant smoke of your chestnuts,
entrancing, even more, your colored ruin,
and your color- yellow,
reflecting in the Tajo's evening,
palpitating with rumors of your songs
and poems:

your dark San Cristobal church,
lit by the presence of a silent widow,
that sits each day
to admire its dark gold and humid wood,
praying,
or only contemplating, or maybe,
they are the same;
churches hidden between the grubbiness

of their façades, that inside resemble theaters,

waiting, like her,

for their resurrection.

Now, only the tiled walls remember,

azulejos breathing their elegant past,

today shining your shoes

in graffiti filled alleyways, with art

and honor

you continue, between tram tracks, your Iberian culture,

captive of a nation that fell in love with the 

sea and loved, even more,

   its torn song.