No Evening Twilight in Acapulco

There's no evening twilight in Acapulco.
After the sun plummeted into the ocean
a black mantle descended over the city
and in the blink of an eye a dark night fell.

Most of the day we'd travelled in the light
aboard a first-class Greyhound Express bus
therefore to alight in the dark surprised us.
A partial lunar eclipse cast a magic spell.

We stood in silence and watched the Moon
passing through the Earth's penumbra
from a condominium in the Zona Dorada,
the only sound that of high-pitched cicadas.

This resort, we were warned, was no longer
the attractive place that we visited last time;
it was now considered the capital of crime,
the locals having acquired a dark reputation.

We might have been tempted to believe
that we should see this city in a new light
yet the people we met were poor but honest
and that was enough to put our minds at rest.

© Luigi Pagano 2021