Ponte Veneziano

two figures

Tight-socketed in space, they watch

Drawn by a single glance,

Stripping the vista to its depth.

A prow pin-points them:

They stare beyond it. The canopy

Which shades a boat

Flares from the line through which they gaze

Orange against coolness.

They do not see it, or,

Seeing, relegate the glow

To that point which it must occupy.

Undistracted, their glance channels itself

Ignoring the whiteness of a bridge

To cross beneath, where,

Closed by the vault,

It broods on the further light.

They do not exclaim,

But, bound to that distance,

Transmit without gesture

Their stillness into its ringed centre.