Rio Flusso del Sangue
The dark, deep water winds sinuous as a serpent between the crumbling walls of palazzos and casas, so narrow that if you put out your arms you could almost touch both sides. Reflections of starlight and lamplight waver in pale crescents on small, over-arching bridges, across the ornamentated balconies of the back of the Palazzo Sangue and the foliage and blooms of wisteria and oleanders that spill over garden walls. The reflections shiver like wraiths in the dark back windows of the Palazzo Ardere. The secretive whisper of the water is magnified to a seductive, echoing rhythm like the wash of a mysterious pulse, the bloodstream of Venice, drugged by centuries of dreams, and vice, and ecstasy.
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