In the purple foothills, the little hours run on light feet like spotted deer

in the fallow dark

leopard geckos and sugar-gliders doze in underwater light to the sound of the rain ceasing

mustard fields become lakes of sulphur, the mango-orchards smoke, like a magical apparatus

until unbidden, a yellow blind is released at the back of a sequence of rooms and the lovers emerge

unfazed as swifts sleeping in flight.