BY ANANDA BARTON

It was almost dusk when she arrived in the city.
The last rays of the red winter sun lighting the black river,
a flag of night and blood.
Caught up in the hurrying crowds at the station
she stood, for a moment, bewildered,
clutching her suitcase.
Then she saw the closed car, waiting,
just where Maria Louise said it would be.
Ensconced in the warm, leather smelling interior
she was whirled through the city streets,
down avenues of glittering storefronts,
past crowds waiting to cross.
Over a granite bridge she spun,
each pylon topped with a violent electric moon.
Humming through streets lit by lamps,
like grey stars, the car drew up
in front an evergreen garden, from which a dim mansion rose.
Walking up the garden path she inhaled the odours
of cold, damp and night,
a window cast a warm glow across the lawn.
She rang the doorbell, footsteps echoed along a corridor,  
then, the door opened, and there stood Maria Louise,
just as she remembered her.

From:  Power, Ada May 1923, Soiled Dove: The Life of Minnie Rae Simpson, Fourth Reich in Argentina, Buenos Aires.