Last Lines from Carratraca

i.m Michael Limb 

...Little more to say for now, save this:
Of a late afternoon, when we've all wrung
the best we can from our siestas,
there come alarums and excursions,
like the clangour of easing bedsprings,
and quick water -- cycled and re-cycled --
trickling or gushing into buckets,
basin, pots of various pitches.

It knocks in the pipes. too. The doorbell
being on the blink, stray zephyrs will
breeze by the pierced shell-likes of the windchimes,
reviving the longed-for, slender, ghost-
ly thrill of ice-cubes in highball glasses.

Very likely, early fly-by-nights
will dive-bomb the lamp's blacked-out chimney
and the hearthrug frolic with silverfish.

Ah, Michael. Ay, mi compaņero,
hay conchitas? Is there, above all,
an insistent tintinnabulation
(or tinnitus perhaps) of goats
tap-dancing up the valley with the light --
cropping and dropping, udders tingling with milk?

There's really nothing else,
except there are two shrill cabreros --
known to us as Miguel and Miguel --
silently telling us under their hats
that, while some are the plural of one,
these goats are an absolute number.