The tour guide treks out

the next forty eight hours.

She is Siberian,

so touch types her words

with minimal loss

of heat.

I sit alone on the bus,

wince

as eyes exhausted-rove

fellow passengers.

They have formed tete-a-tetes,

faithful affiliations,

the kind when two bodies curve

like tuliped hands shielding

something precious.

I can't complain,

I haven't made the effort

and I am

leaving the Venice

of the North

with indelible images -

sparks burned into

my soul:

Gilt spires heron-fishing sky;

buildings iced

in macaroon -

rose, tangerine, lime;

fireworks soaring on smoking stems,

the ecstatic succumbing, then -

chrysanthemum -

bobble hat made of Pushkin Theatre.

Birch leaves

soft-caressing marble thighs;

goblin glow of lamps

shoal-sharded on pewter canal.

Ironwork - gloriously organic -

Jack's beanstalk a-riot;

Gainsborough's incomparable

Blue woman. Leonardo's Madonna

and Child.

So much beauty makes the heart tremor.

So much ache

goads the soul; speak:

How

I wish

you

were here.