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.