The slender legs of gulls, like the long sticks of reeds,

rooted in the bottom of the lake.

Standing like stilts, they tip forward,

slowly dip their long thin beaks in the water.

Then, an awakening: upward, at once.

The shadows all fall in the same direction—

Tenochtitlan exists, too, on a lake.

Is it not this day that it was submerged?

Is it not this lake that hides it?

The sun cracks open through the clouds,

runs like an egg on the surface of the water.

The birds fly low for a moment

Their wings, white over white over white