Storm

After midnight

thunder woke us

the tumbling boulders

I remember from my Atlanta childhood

horizon flashes

followed by vertical zigs & zags

thunder so loud

we flinched & hugged

to the sound of rain

light building to heavy

breezes from windows

until we closed them.

Cataracts spilled from the south roof drain.

Spray filled the air

next to the big north window.

I turned back the rug

shifted the power strip & computers

out of the range of weather.

By now the rain pounded

entered beneath the doors

through the gaps 

between walls & window frames

flooded the upstairs floor

leaked through the ceiling into the bookcase.

With rags & buckets

naked we roamed the house

mopped & wiped

& cursed the builders for promising, sí,

mañana they would seal the house.

Finally, the rain diminished

lightning dimmed

thunder spoke softly from a distance.

We opened windows

lay back down in cooler air

& talked until we slept

till morning.

A Common Spider

A common spider

unearthed by my hoe

hauled an awkward

globe of eggs

attached

to a ventral point

on her abdomen. 

She shifted 

no farther 

than a foot away

so not to risk

losing her life’s 

requisite burden. 

Though she stayed 

over an hour 

I noticed

no change. 

Inside the globe

I imagined

egg after egg

crowding 

each to many

while mother released 

what remained

of her load.

Playing the Dozens

          towns that look like pebbles or flushed quail
                                               – Jorge Teillier

parrots that shriek like tickled babies or goosed nuns
horses that pair head to tail like boxed shoes or mannikin feet

beetles that twine in long hair like rope climbers or plastic beads
blond skinks that speckle black like bananas or sand

foxes that scale & rifle garbage bins like urchins or druggies
ducks that dive like high school grades or barnstormers at town fairs

hawks that flock to alfalfa like maggots to meat or geese to golf links
dogs that troll outdoor tables like cigarette girls or deaf mutes

mosquitoes that hover like tour guides or silent farts
owls that guard their nests like nuns their chalk or bankers their loans

toads that pepper the night roads like pinballs or land mines
lyrics that drag on & on like slow downloads or warm-up bands

The Dawn of Summer

These days of half sun, 

half cloud at the dawn of summer 

when cool drops fall from a blue sky, 

the violent spring winds 

at last have died.

Sheets hang motionless, 

at noon pillowcases merely sway 

this Saturday, two more left in December, 

another year 

running out of things to say.

Aware of a noise 

above the vigorous digging of its hole, 

el tucutucu climbs to the top, listens, 

climbs higher & sees me 

working the hose. 

By evening 

northern peaks are lost in fog, 

southerns gray & black

like scenes on Chinese vellum scrolls, 

Andean gods strike & crackle. 

Night sounds: 

snowmelt acapellas along la acequia, 

makes a loop around the pond, 

light rain drums on bricks & sand,

a fox barks at the moon. 

For Real

Fear of presence

is due

to what doesn’t occur

in occupied space:

a fox, curious 

but feral,

a chitin bark

ferried by scarlet wings,

an acapella

shrilled by a burrowing owl 

to warn its hatch, 

fresh rust 

etching the chain

during my bicycle ride.

It’s why 

I stop hearing

human noise

when screeching parrots flock

from vineyard to sky, 

my spirits rise

to join them. 
My fear dissolves.

I fly for real.

This Child, These Tests, These Beginnings

Zoë arrives carrying roses – red

yellow, & pink – burdens that nearly smother

this child – pouting lips, downcast head –

whose shy is sham that lets her test the water.

Zoë wants to plumb all of it, details

large & small, self & Zoë propelled –

dung beetles & rosy stones, balls

of styrofoam pried up by her fingernails, 

a steep slope to the empty pond, a stake 

to pull her body up by, a pile of sand,

small sticks she orders to stand, sticks 

that test her theories of this non-mother land

ruled solely by physics, including her hold

on me as she tightrope-walks my world.

Imaginary Pond

Equipped with one woman, seven men, rocks, rebar, 

a tape measure, a carpenter’s square, 

& a yellow string wound around a willow stick

draw an imaginary line from the midpoint of the front door 

to the midpoint of a soon-to-be-graveled path 

on the far side of an imaginary pond.

Along the far edge of the patio outside the front door

mark equal perpendicular distances from the imaginary line 

to the starting points of the imaginary pond’s oblique-angled sidewalls.

Parallel to the first, draw a second imaginary line

from the starting point of a sidewall to the near edge of the acequia 

(the irrigation canal that brings snow melt 

from the Andes to our community vineyards)

that runs along between the far edge of the imaginary pond 

& the soon-to-be-graveled path.

Mark the distance from the far end of the second imaginary line 

to the far end of one oblique-angled sidewall. Repeat 

(some of the above) to pinpoint a second sidewall.

Note that the pond sidewalls (one day, will) 
meet the far patio edge at identical angles. For the moment, imagine 

crossing a narrow wooden bridge from the far edge of the patio 

over a pond, over a canal, to a graveled path. 

Start from inside the front door.

Keep an eye out for the imaginary toad.

Nooker Prize

your lips: somewhere 

to return to 

when else & other fail

buckle up lock tight

anchor drop

shade pull slow tide

trading gram for pound

at this ringside 

featherweight bout

pepper-laced brine

hint of ozone

asafoetida afterbite

your smile: instantly

lethargic

inspires winsomely

chocolate peppermint toad [cf TCV]

Yes, They Can

Where a raised voice 

from the ruling or military class

can lead directly to beatings, arrest, torture, & murder 

not only of the accused but of their family & friends

a person will assent to anything 

though she already knows she can’t deliver, 

though he knows the product can't be bought or built,
the order filled, the deadline met.

Even thirty years later 

when lethal stakes no longer hold 

people adopt a docile, accommodating stance –
say they’re not lying – no, it’s their way 

of giving us the answers they think we want.

General/Déspota/Tirano Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri

The Wind with a Hill Approaches

Mornings on bicycles we pedal past a fox

crossing the road, another rushing the vineyard,

then us, watching for nose & ears in the far grass.

Who will make stilts for the boy without a bicycle?

Such wind drives every grape to the end of its stem,

tugs water from the hose, spins the patio fans.

Who will name October’s filly? Pequeña, he says.

Lechita, I say – Little Milk – to make us remember.

A smile, launched by his Buen dia, streams down her face.

One child does standup, a second averts his gaze,

the third, still too young to know Odysseus

sways & rhymes, motions a wine-dark sea.

Lechita, aka Little Milk

Care Less

The last time someone hurt my feelings

was in 1964. I was seventeen. 

A member of the college radio station 

I wanted to become a member of 

said I might be the first candidate flung

(rejected) for trying too hard. 

After I cried, all night I wondered –

what did it mean to try too hard?

Did I need to care less?

The Only Thing I Have Left to Lose

is my bedroom, which is

where I’m sitting now

on the living room couch next to 

Mike, who’s now sitting

on his red chair with ottoman

next to my red chair with ottoman

& our cardboard box

(Quara Malbec)

side tables 
while any minute now (they said 3 PM

but it’s nearly 4) the granite workers 

will trim the side overhangs 

off two kitchen countertops

(stone dust everywhere)

in order to make room

for the new stove

which will replace

the wrong stove, which 

they purchased 

because they didn’t look 

at the photo we sent immediately 

after they asked if we minded if 

they bought our stove

at a different store than the store 

where we found it. 

(Claro que no estaba la misma cocina.) 

Meanwhile, a tiler 

is tiling the shower while 

painters putty & paint

while landscapers place plants while 

carpenters hang fiberglass screen (which
they miraculously found

after they said they couldn’t, after 

they tried plastic screen 

(mierda), then metal

which they painted black because

silver reflected the sun but 

installation caused the paint to crack 

& peel), all this happening at once

while El Jefe (who is here 

only because finally

I took Jeremy’s advice, 

stamped my foot & explained 

that no workers could work on our job

without an onsite on-the-job 

jefe-ing Jefe) jefes.

That went over like a wet fart.

El Jefe grabbed his workers & left

but the next day, they all

came back. Work is getting done 

while I sit in my bedroom 

qua living room (sala)

& wonder 

why I ever thought I needed more

than a one-room house.

A Poem I Wrote Without Thinking About a Chicken

A hickey.

I had one once, maybe twice,

mostly stupid I thought,

maybe a girl would think a life without a single hickey

wasn't worth living.

Probably I thought that.

Everyday I get at least one headache

& one stomachache.

Life didn't used to be like this.

We raised ducks

in Hawaii. A baby duck, better yet

three or four of them

could keep your mind off most everything.

Sand, for example, which drifts

through the window & door frames

until you'd think we lived in a sandbox.

About time to buy some bright-colored 

sandcastle molds, not that we ever used

more than our hands. Palms

can shove a lot of sand into a castle wall.

I don't remember playing much 

with my children 

(rhymes with?)

which is when my pen ran out of ink

which is not to say I didn't

only that I don't remember.

I tried to lie down after lunch

but my stomach hurt

from eating what I can't even think about.

Sadly, turkey

is scheduled for Thursday

when I'd hoped to skip it entirely

though I love roast turkey

in moderation

without company or mashed potatoes or pie.

Dumplings, think gnocchi, 

avocado & rice crackers,

dogs that don't dog

but with the boat docked it hardly matters.

Kiwis, persimmons, Savoy cabbage, beet leaves.

Thorn trees. Why can Mike

lie down & be asleep in minutes

while I regret eating at all

ever. Smoking

might be a better idea

if I were R2D2 or a zombie.

Where did the whole zombie thing come from

anyway? Just when I thought

(remember? thinking is dangerous)

there'd be no wind today

it's blowing like stink again

like when it's rotten.

Nothing worse than a rotten . . . Here comes 

a pickup,

more workers I suppose. More sand

in the house. Piss on the toilet seat.

A boat or a tent

sounds good. Half & half.

Eggs – oops! – & cauliflower for breakfast.

Now the new ink cartridge refuses to flow.

Fine. 

That must mean my poem's done.

Rhea americana, Greater Rhea, Ñandú

Penelope obscura, Dusky-legged Guan, Pava de Monte Común

What Else Am I Forgetting?

Back at home 

the workers are waiting for me, 

one stirring a bucket 

full of wet cement. 

They are waiting

for me to unlock the door

but I won’t, not again 

as I have so many times before. 

Go get your Jefe, I say, 

which confuses them. 

Walk over & ask him, please, 

to come here. 

The workers don’t like to be told

by women, by anyone

except their Jefe, 

but this worker listens. 

What else can he do? La Señora 

won’t open the door, not until 

el Jefe comes, & la Señora 

commences to explain: 

no more workers without 

a Jefe on site to supervise; 

no more shoes in my house or trash 

flung in my yard;  no more urine 

on my toilet seat; no more 

burying wet cement in my garden; 

no more arriving 

without texting me first. 

Do you have my number? 

He’s watching me, el Jefe, 

nodding & softly answering 

Sí. After I shut my kitchen door 

he motions his workers 

over to his pickup – one 

carries the bucket of wet cement 

just beginning to glaze.

El Jefe drives away.

Practicing for Thanksgiving or

The Bird in the Oven at Dawn 

whatever dreams I dreamed last night

replay as stills, my body waiting for red-lit 4

to flip to 5, awareness to shift from black to light

I spark the gas, its whoosh (& whoosh

& whoosh) repeats from left to right, I slit

the chicken’s market bag, upend the bird to wash

that blurred dream I dreamed last night

won't clear – straight back, forced march

futile measures, an ever strengthening lethal fight

20 minutes of roast, I rotate my bird 

from breast to back, expose the feathered stubs 

on wings & headless neck, inhale what can’t be heard

my chicken’s last cry, my feats

each night in other worlds, helpless quests

I try but never win, the hand-to-hand defeats

golding breast, skin on a drumstick 

torn from turning, where are those dreams

of spreading my arms, rising from grass & rock

to purest sky, swoop & dive, dove

or eagle, breeze or endless wheeling gyre, 

when will I soar beyond the boot, the glove 

& now the hour's run, my plump bird’s

brown, the oven snuffed, day risen, pole beans

rinsed & ready to snap, maledictions stayed with words

when will I soar

Aubade

Waking to pale light from sweat 

above & below in sheets like a swamp, 

my body damp as if swimming 

& streaked with salt, I kick the covers back

to cool, to dry, to wonder why

we stayed in there starving 

for days, so many of us, including 

the toddler with her artificial arms, 

my brother loading his truck with engines 

darkened by grease, my partner

filling a larger truck with everything

we owned: that was the second

after the concert hall dream, 

the black-on-white sketch of the mafia don

portrayed in first position on stage 

as if I only, seated close to the orchestra 

performing my minor role, 

knew how he’d stolen 

my real life where the tarantula 

sleeps on the opuntia, where 

hummingbirds suckle at nectar- 

brimming yellow flowers, 

where swallows swoop into Cafayate 

on the 16th of November.

Grammastola sp.?

Next, a Bear?

Born on October’s final Sunday, the chestnut filly 

dozes in a rich alfalfa bed 

beside her mother, a three-year bay.

Yesterday an armadillo 

scuttled across the road in front of my car

& disappeared in thorny brush, scattering hidden doves. 

Above my bicycle, flocks of parrots

toe the power lines: rocking-chair swivels, two-step sidles 

show off yellow stripes below the tails.

Bald & frail, a fox 

dawdles along the vineyards, its dust-colored fur

swallowed by mange, its tail a bottlebrush.

Brash stripes flaring, a coati 

swishes off the fourth tee to hide its pointed nose 

under a stone shadow.

Nasua nasua, coatí, South American coati

Kallchaki Valley Wind

Blown up from early noon

the dust infiltrates cars & houses,

orifices & pores. 

                          The richest

scarcely notice, insulated by maids

who sweep & mop, grooms who soap 

the saddles & wash the cars, exchangeable 

chicos who water & clip the lawns.

Dressed in brown cotton,

the poorest 

                  earn their pesos 

breathing through bandanas in vineyards 

swept by scorching clouds of dust.

When the white sun

founders behind the highest peak

while the workers pedal slowly home,

when the patrón, familiar in his cava

samples an evening Malbec

                                            only then

does the wind die.

Blind Stone

Blind stone borders the garden

path of my gardens yet to be.

Picture scented reds, wind-swept bronzes,

one-day yellows, early- & late-

season pinks & greens.

A path to bridges & ponds, to lettuce

artichoke, peppers, carrots & beets.

Not a lovers’ path wide enough for four feet

but a gardener’s path for a wheel

bearing a barrow guided

by two gloved hands, a path followed by

clodhopping feet.

A trowel, a bucket, secateurs & a hoe

to chop the weeds. Hoses and seeds.

One day soon you’ll see.

I Would Rather Have

stone bridges than floor scratches

a garage door than a gravel pile

door latches than wrong-sized bolts

a leveled stove than a broken tile

curtain rods than granite flaws

a quiet fan than a missing screen

propane valves than primer paint

a door stop than a split beam

floor drains than mud holes

a towel bar than a water stain

lights hung than trash heaps

& the hummingbird 

slowing to watch me watch it 

on its morning path to the prickly pear.

Oreotrochilus estella, Picaflor Puneño, Andean Hillstar

Live On

Deep in the mine
where colors spark: red on green
gold on blue, where splines
& fractal lines unfurl
I hone my lead, riffle hairs on
brushes, dither my palette to render views
on rock of godlike creatures we seek,
we worship, take life for life
to live on.

Pedro Furada, São Raimundo Nonato, Brasil

Enjoying Argentina

This warm spring Argentina

morning I’m digging out stones,

pegging clean clothes to dry,

bicycling to town to say hello 

to Alejandro. He shows me our bed,

a palisade of wooden slats 

aslant against a fence at the end 

of his indoor-outdoor 

workshop. He tells me about 

the dictators, about Alfonsín & Menem, 

about years when fear, finance, 

& crime at the highest level produced 

generations without training, 

without apprenticeship to learn 

basic skills long known 

in Argentina: how to paint,

how to build a house, how

to plumb, how to work wood.

This is why the completion of our bed 

is late, this & the misfortune 

that the tree trunk Alejandro

chose did not mill into good planks, 

so he lost time finding another.

I am not here to complain

that the bed is late, I am here 

to visit Alejandro, to smell 

the wood, to admire the squares 

soon to become our mesas de luz 

(bedside tables), to listen

to Alejandro’s stories about

Argentina, to learn two

new words, oficio (craft)

& hundir (to sink), what our shower 

floor must do, because the craft 

of slanting shower tile to the drain

seems to be one of those lost 

skills, the cost of hard years 

in my new country of Argentina.

Spring Comes with Parrots

Roaring, an absence of birds, poplar trees bending toward the south fence,

lavender petals torn from a white calyx, a far thin whistle. 

Desert winds scatter dust & batter houses while fruit trees bloom, 

the cactus buds, grape vines green: the parrots return. 

Across the open sandy field & the gravel service road, beyond utility poles

somewhere in a vineyard hundreds of parrots cry out morning. 

Morning after night rain, the sand rinsed, dust settled, each brown blade

gleams, purple spikes thread gray-green leaves, snow crowns peaks. 

Stepping out to the patio I see the burrowing owl standing 

a stone’s toss away, considering, then trilling a song: are we neighbors? 

Head cocked, the chimango stands beside the wooden barrel, bastion of

banana peel, peach pit, egg shell, melon rind, chicken skin & bone. 

Out back on a rebar spike a benteveo studies the mud-swirled pool, 

gazes left, then right: out front two brown doves poke at bare ground. 

Forty parrots swarm the tensioned wires crossing the youngest vineyard: 

dip & bow, offer & counter, proclaim & respond, lift & swoop.

Such noise: where is time to eat between the ululations? Bumps & rushes, 

beak-to-beak wing-wild perturbations, flashes of olive & blue. 

On each dive the golondrina flashes blue, the benteveo sails over yellow

but teru-teru hops & shrieks, glum to be only black & white & brown. 

Four pirinchos touch down – yellow crests flaring, long tails leaving 

trails in the sand – they lunge & skip into the vineyard to feed. 

All day around me the hawks circle, swoop, settle rise: what they find,

what they take, must be beneficial, even delicious, all I don’t see. 

Wind the color green flycatcher fresh shoots roses ankle socks a blue bicycle 

a dove’s imprint on the picture window flowering cactus in pots.

Hundreds at once the parrots rise up shrieking, black from one angle, 

silver from another in sun’s low glare, then down to a willow, a rest.

Milvago chimango, chimango

flowering peach

Pitangus sulphuratus, benteveo

parrots in a willow tree

My Body Is the Memory of Your Bones

        – Octavio Paz

you touch me in sleep to comfort me

you call my name when I cry out

my palm warms your buttock

my belly palpates the slope of your back

you press your fingers to the small of my back

softly you tap my forehead, my chin, my breastbone

my fingers trace the arcs of your ears

my hands, the bare skin of your quads

arms around my back, you hold me

lips to your chest I lighten

lips on my neck you graze

Organs & Dark Meat

My favorite chicken has thick skin,

four thighs, four legs, four wings, 

four lungs, two livers, two gizzards, 

six hearts, & one head on one long neck. 

The hearts live in its throat. The lungs 

inside its wings propel perpetual flight. 

If I can catch it, before I chop off its head

it lays one golden egg that hatches a clone

that matures in seven days to be plump

& juicy for my favorite Sunday dinner.

Taxonomy

The morning hue thickens to overcast, &

desperate ants chaw the jasmine vine.

Ah how the desert hums, how it sucks damp

chemistry from air. To chasten a possum

involves a dumb whistling. Find my first

blossom with bold names in it. The sun aims

low like a sniper. Blessing counting blessing,

between shots I hone the weeder to wire.

Teacher, I am an outcast icon, dangling loose

upon my flail, & the standins for anything

less mortal have finally surrendered. What

is this gardening, this unkempt row, scorched &

excommunicating the thistle seed? We twitch to

the Hootchie Cootchie. Taxonomy was once a clone.

Zephyranthes candida, aka azucenita del río, Fairy Lily, White Rain Lily

Panicum virgatum

Shall I call it switchgrass

or tall panic grass – the place

I hide when gauchos gallop 

onto our ranch bearing

the cowhide of last night’s dinner?

What of blackbent 

or Wobsqua grass – 

should I imagine a wobbling 

or an obsequious squaw? or a bent-

backed, dark-skinned blade?

Panicum virgatum

sounds to me like a virgin panicking 

faster than she can run

from an evil vir lusting after 

her thatchgrass.

Mostly I long

for end of season when green

ripens to brown &

everyone, knowers of grasses or not,

labels it wild redcap.

The Finish

Stone dust rises & falls, 

glue twitches my nose & eyes,

noises destroy my focus.

The electrician’s icepick 

probes the concrete walls for 

conduit-carrying wires.

Flies arrive

through open windows & doors

without screens. 

From the garage 

a saw whines along a line 

penciled on granite.

Supervisors boast

bright shirts & telephones,

workers wear sweat-stained brown.

The plumbed rooms 

throng with masons 

fitting & glueing countertops.

We set out for a walk, wishing 

the work would finish

& let us be.

vanity: unplumbed

Accessorizing

An Argentine-artisan-

woven placemat 

of orange & purple 

& green protects 

the polished wood 

– lapacho – of our large

dining table next

to the ottoman-access-

orized red chairs 

at the north end of 

our great room, painted 

yellow & orange 

& pink, floored
in orange tile, a room that 

becomes a kitchen, 

painted pink & yellow 

& green, inside the 

house painted 

the same green – green 

of Alpine flora, 

growing high 

in the Andes above 

our desert brown.

When I Need to Walk

when anger mutes me
when the mewing cat steps toward me
when people close to me start to fight
when ozone fills the humid air
when I know the slightest word would wound
when roadkill stains the side of the highway
when hunger drives me from my hotel
when I spot ripe blackberries along dusty gravel roads
when revenge schedules demolition derbies in my brain
when a body of water shimmers at a distance
when we've finished dinner & guests want to sit & talk
when seals surface only yards off the beach
when people call meetings to find consensus
when the owl's chiding tells me I'm too close to its underground nest
when I exit the jetway after long hours of flight
when a bridge crosses a river where snakes & turtles might sun
when someone turns on television
when a wild animal walks away across a field
when people talk about shopping
when dawn pales the bedroom light

What Beings

sheets whip the line in the warm parched air of desert spring

mountain peaks layer in varying grays like ink paintings
some are snow-capped, some greening, some spiraling smoke

dust-colored caterpillars vault from sand to post to vine

chimango hawks rise twenty or more from the half-green field,
one ferries a branch in its beak to a high & hidden nest

after rain I smell earth & grasses, snowmelt courses a rock chase

eleven horses (two at least carrying colts) water at a concrete tank,
graze in alfalfa higher than hocks, idle head to haunch in shade

beetles climb my hair, circle my sleeve: what beings tend my sleep?

mountain peaks layer . . . chimango hawks rise

snowmelt courses a rock chase

Getting into Shape

All night the floor tiles sweat through pores, the water condensing on door

& window glass: we wake to rooms hiding the views we look for.

An orange truck arrives with our coffee: father, son, & a helper unload

gardenias, pomegranate, fig, oregano, iris & lily, species unknown.

We pedal beside vineyards, a coot motionless on her nest, freshly leafed

fruit trees, newly installed street lamps, a road crew & chief.

Today’s goal: El Museo del Vid y Vino, every day a smidgen farther, 

.3km on gravel to paved road, .3 back home, we’re up to 12.5 kilometers.

Where’s the black & orange bird? Might it be a Baltimore oriole

summering in Argentina while Maryland readies for winter cold?

Along the river path trots a shining chestnut mare, nothing on her back, 

rope around her neck, led by an old man on a single-speed bike.

White butterflies, dark hummingbirds, a flock of seven shrieking parrots,

doves that fly up at our approach, competing hawks, & sparrows.

We choose ice cream for our reward: strawberry, mocha, banana

in sugar cones with sips of ice water at the artesanal Heladería on the plaza.

Museo del Vid y Viño, Cafayate

In Hawaii

Hakalau, Hawaii

     In Hawaii . . . we are not at home
to hear & feel the rain
falling. Greens are glowing
though we fail to see.

     We don’t pretend not to miss it.
Remember the smell before
the rain comes? How our pleasure builds
when fog occludes the view?

     Prinked by machines & hired men
the acres sparkle their finest
for buyers dreaming relief

     from mainland gridlock,
urban plunder, their daily commute –
like us, they’re seeking paradise,

     something new.

Cafayate, Salta, Argentina

Waiting

I was packing when my mother died,
on my way from Hawaii
to Amsterdam
but dropping by to see her first.
No one warned me she was nearly gone.

I know nothing about death,
its arrival, its departure, whether she met
death sleeping or awake. They said
she’d stopped eating.
What happened before that?

She tried to be Katherine Hepburn
instead of the fifth of six
girls in a poor Catholic family
far from Boston, badgered by her father
to attend mass,

mostly ignored by her mother
who tired of children
after seven
(one died) but went on
to birth seven more. What brutes

men are. I’m happy my mother defied him
though she went on to marry
a worse one.
We’re so alike in stubbornness
& valor

though we never learned
how not to squabble, how not to lie.
Many nights
she plays in my dreams
always young, vibrant, always taken for granted

because she never left.
Somewhere in some lonesome home
she’s still waiting
for me, I’m still trying
to arrive.

Esther Jones Peters in the 1980s

South American Desert Spring

From the northeast
today the wind orchestrates
the willow dance, urges
birds to choose the strongest, bendiest
twigs for nests, the shiny foil,
cigarette butts, the lengths of cotton
lost from dustcloths, clumps
of dryer lint. Chimangos dive bomb
their competition,
horneros lacquer their mud
ovens, the steady coot
roosts on the dead grass next to the lake
her mate secures from dawn
till moonrise. The buzz
of flies, the whirr of
hummingbirds, the ben-te-ve-o
of benteveos, the shrieks of parrot flocks on
chimney tops, the warning chatter
of burrowing owls
secure the richest season.

Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango

Hornero, Furnariidae

Benteveo, Pitangus sulfuratus, Great Kiskadee

Pastel

Today at the workers’ café we order
the daily special – Pastel con papa
con ensalada – though we don’t know
the meaning of the word Pastel.

Always, we share one order, plus
un medio de vino tinto. Graciela
tells us an aunt & her two nieces &
someone’s mother cook the food

& also sell frutas y verduras
one door down. Pastel arrives –
potato, ground beef, & potato
topped with cheese, shredded & melted

to a lacy web – Argentine version
of shepherd’s pie, new to Hervé,
aka Yakeen since he lived in India,
who long ago was born French.

Yakeen’s girlfriend regards me
with undisguised suspicion
after learning my name is Carol,
the name of Yakeen’s previous girl,

though I’m ever so old & only today
met Yakeen when he parked his scooter
& crossed the street & surprised us –
Hello, Carol – we met on facebook

thanks to our friend, Jeff, another
expat, all of us far from home
though quite at home, ordering
Pastel & becoming new friends.

Flares

Homeless is who we've become
hearing the desert wind drone.

Sand in our crepey throats, is this the next hard pillow?

On worn hotel sheets beneath a quilted spread
spooning, we lean toward sleep.

Same-name streets guide us to beefy lunches,
salad without the raw onion.

My skin chills in artificial air. I lay my body
on his when afternoon dulls

our fruitless day, his fingers quicken.

Home is where we are, he tongues,
turning me slowly, my scales, my thorns

softening in his hands. We smolder, beacons
fired at early dusk,

the desert blooms.

No Frame Fits

I’m the kind of woman

who meets a man named John who

an hour later says,

“You’re not a normal woman,”

because I said,

“I don’t like talking on the phone.”

He meant it as a compliment.

When Miriam the well-endowed

begins to rant about designers

who put pockets

on woman’s blouses, I say, “Women without tits

like shirt pockets,” but she says

she’s talking about blouses,” & I say,

“I don’t own any blouses.”

When I ruin five more T-shirts

by spilling food down their fronts

I shop the Walmart boys department

for five more – size 14,

bright colors – but here in Cafayate

Walmart’s a 3-hour drive.

I’ll need a new source.

My husband Mike’s the vain one –

shaving, primping his hair, & trimming

his mustache for ten minutes

after I’ve walked past the mirror

without a glance, pulled on the clothes

from the top of the pile, & often enough forgotten

to comb my hair.

Remember Madame Curie

who failed to pamper her skin, Carolyn Chute

who writes novels in flannel shirts,

granny skirts, & shit-kicker boots,

Sinead O’Connor who plumped up &

grew hair – square or round –

no frame fits all women.

Choices

I prefer rain.
I prefer Mike.
I prefer children from walking age until puberty.
I prefer Earl Grey tea with honey.
I prefer Peet’s coffee.
I prefer yellow, orange, & purple.
I prefer raspberries.
I prefer to get the details right ahead of time.
I prefer a house that faces east & south (east & north
in the southern hemisphere).
I prefer a botanical garden to a landscaped garden.
I prefer color to black & white.
I prefer suffering from my remarkable dreams
to the alternative of not dreaming.
I prefer Keegan for his humor, Zoe for her thoughtfulness, Moshe
for his determination, Phaedra for her zaniness, Daniel
for his affection, Tova for her attitude.
I prefer solitude, quiet, nature.
I prefer the out of doors.
I prefer glass houses & metal roofs.
I prefer knowing the shape of the inside from the shape of the outside.
I prefer large birds whose flying seems improbable.
I prefer women friends.
I prefer reading to movies.
I prefer dirty over clean.
I prefer barefoot, naked, uncivilized, & I don’t like buttons.
I prefer raw food.
I prefer baby animals, whole milk, shrimp with their heads on.
I prefer single malt scotch.
I prefer J, K, Q, X, & Z.
I prefer wet grass, unopened buds, unfurled fronds, ripe fruit.
I prefer walking on land to boating on water or flying in air,
unless I’m riding in a helicopter or flying my body in a dream.
I prefer riding to driving.
I prefer riding bareback to holding a pommel.
I prefer squash to tennis, baseball to football, hats to gloves.
I prefer anything over celebrity culture, mass media,
processed food, & conspicuous consumption.
I prefer hard rain & lightning & thunder.
I prefer swimming.
I prefer the life of the mind to the life of the body.
I prefer William Carlos Williams & Ezra Pound to T. S. Eliot.
I prefer Scrabble.
I prefer clearing the forest with lopping shears & chainsaw
to liberate ferns & ohi’as.
I prefer apple bananas & white pineapple.
I prefer Torrontés.