poetrysheet

starlings rise

like smoke in a cold city

cat claws the window

 

branches, skeletal stiff,

grow lithe, buds sprout overnight

wind, storm, lightning, hail

 

two chinese bakers

sit in bright, spring sun, eyes closed,

dream of sparkling streams

 

the fifty-ninth minute slides into the hour

somewhere between arch of spinal column

and curve of hip and stumbles up

nervous, hands crossed behind its back

eyes turned down to the floor a little sleepy,

embarrassed, cheeks flushed

Picnic baskets spilled, sticky pop gone flat,

salty, soggy chips, peanutbuttermesses,

sunburn noses, jammed thumbs,

toes skinned on the bottom of the pool.

 

Chairs and towels, whining boys,

impatient sisters lost in parking lot reflections,

sun like murder.

 

At the edge of the pool

mothers gaze on water nymphs

in flashing waves.

he jerked about the hospital bed

like a moth in the bottom of a porch lamp

 

family had become strangers

pictures on the wall, more strangers

a retirement party, a wedding, a grandchild’s baptism

a paper clipping with his grandchild’s name

and one more picture, another stranger,

somewhat familiar—a boy, floppy ears, narrow face,

bow tie in a one-room schoolhouse

 

the man in the bed, his eyes

free from worry, looked like those of the kid

for the first time in seventy years

wind busts down concrete and brick canyons,

rain chases bums into doorways and under steps;

over hunched shoulders and upturned collars,

umbrellas open and close like fists

the days grow long and you know you should go outside

to walk in the rain, feel the moon, get a good sun spank,

and sweat in the shadow of shade trees

while children play in the grass

 

instead, days are long, dawn and noon and sunset

slip between the blinds, clock hands point to gloom

at the end of pen that you use to sign your name

on a piece of paper a boy will find one day

on the way home

 

it will flap in the street before the pile of a building

where workers with rough hands chip mortar from brick

the boy will try to make sense of the long sentences, the marks,

try to imagine the person the name represents

then, he will drop that paper back into the gutter and wander

off to make his marks

 

the long days will grow short and you’ll want to go outside

to hear bird songs, run your hands over the ribs of your lover,

kiss children playing in the leaves, rise from the shade into autumn sunset

to step into what’s been dug for you

and dance

 

She’s in the back row,

rays of moted sunlight in this room

distract her from her work.

 

 

At the head table, words, sales figures, facts, selling points

flutter like ash from a housefire,

urgent, bright, smoky—flecks catch on the surface

of the river of opening remarks,

spiral on eddies beneath the product table.

 

 

A trout’s jumped over in coffee and rolls,

crabs click on the fruit trays,

goldfinches flit in the chandeliers.

A frog in the breast pocket of the CEO’s suit

leaps to fly-swarmed fact sheets and catalogs.

 

 

On the opposite shore, where carpet spreads like grass

beneath cedar-ratcheted bluffs,

she lounges, blue sky flashes off the back of her eye.

She sighs; her breath smells of rain on pines,

she feels cool river sand between her toes.

 

 

Sturgeon poke weary eyes out of the sand

at the end of shrouded folding tables.

When the fish move, reeds wave bony fingers at the clouds;

cottonwoods rattle in the wind.

i never loved you more

than i did this afternoon

when we met in front of the cafe

 

we should have been in Rome

sipping coffee in the Piazza Navonna,

our feet in the Fountain of the Four Rivers

 

I can see it now

we laugh and splash out of the fountain

to prop our wet feet up on the tanks

 

the soldiers have aimed their cannon

toward Trastevere at the old woman

who stands at a window and sings

ballads about wars Italians always lose

 

below her, spies run narrow alleys

and wine drips from pergola into mouths of cupids—

the baker shouts after school boys

who steal loaves from his stand out front

 

we loll in the Fontana di Trevi,

invite romans to join us in a fiesta of legs,

haunches, generous bosoms,

and men whose backsides make the old woman

remember the days when the boys were soft and taut

 

the pope climbs to St. Peter’s cupola

to issued another bull about people

making love in fountains and mocking soldiers

in tanks protecting the virtue of the republic

 

we wait a few minutes and make love again—

the old woman recites poems

while her husband, wrinkled like Umbria,

strums the whores of Perugia like lyres

 

people stream from theaters, love exhausted,

eyes glassy bright—fishermen jump

bow to bow across the Po

 

young lovers care not about fascisti, spia, polizia segreta

but only that Pan has ushered in a time of forgetfulness

 

yes, the soldiers turtle out of the tanks now

and the waiter at the Cafe Navonna

wears nothing but his apron

 

along the alleys, spies pine for days

when wretchedness was good business

 

young lovers stretch out along grapevines

and wine flows from the lips and nipples and penises

of every marble cherub and god

 

the old man runs off with his Perugian whores;

the old woman stands naked in the window

flanked with strong, anxious young men,

with never-ending hard ons and a penchant for service

 

she sings arias to linden budding in the square

 

under the statue of St. Andrew, the pope has given up,

he wanders St. Peter’s, raises his hands to heaven, cries,

and the world rejoices at rebirth

 

in this moment on a sidewalk

you and I become complete,

whole, needing nothing

with god’s blessing

Guillermo José Guerra Hernandez Carrillo

never complained about drought

it will end, he said, it always does

 

the tequila never stopped, and for him

that was almost as good as rain sweeping over the desert

breaking the monotony of sun and heat

 

one night, Memo sang about how he and his Comanche kin

rode with Pancho Villa, picked their way across the sky islands,

and shot Texas Rangers for fun and sport

 

the revolution was good then, he said, anything went

a strapping woman with red hair and a winchester

squeezed him and his horse until they fainted with delight

 

Pershing and his Army regulars, Obregon’s frumpy green men,

ran eyes wide, mouths agape, lungs bursting,

from Villa’s Mexicans, Comanches, and what was left of the Apaches

 

Memo and Villa’s men waved their rifles like antennae,

and showed Pershing’s Punitive Expedition a modern war

where fairness was a matter of opinion

 

cool wind sweeps up over Chihuahua tonight

over the gravestones on this bank of the Rio Bravo del Norte

where Carrillo danced in the blond grass with a jug of wine

 

rain falls with a sigh

the gardener swims in a sea

of jonquil, gladiola, nasturtium

 

the spring wind pushes waves

against her knees, her boots and wrists

 

she moves through the waves,

her hands float on the soil

like anemones fluttering in current

 

she stands, the sea parts,

flowers gush from her basket

 

at one edge of the ocean,

butterfly peas gather

like a crowd on a pier

awaiting a passenger ship