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Border Line
Puerto Nuevo or New Port in English
is 40 miles from the border of Mexico
it's Saturday and there's a slight
overcast on our venture
¿Quieren comida? they say, courting us
with brown sugar smiles and honey-glazed eyes
Men like paparazzi perched outside their restaurants
begging to cook us a meal
pleading to serve us anything
as we glitter their muddy streets
The salty air hangs heavy
on my conscience,
on the roof of this restaurant,
on the rim of my margarita,
bittersweetly blended in chartreuse
We sit over-looking the village
and sing out to the mariachi band below:
“La cucaracha, La cucaracha, ya no puede caminar”
till all twelve trot up the stairs
playing guitars, horns, drums and violins,
bursting at the seams of indigo blue
wearing shiny sombreros and sequined desperation
I trace the sound with the tips of my fingers
and lose myself for a moment
Yet, on the brim of our echo
I can't help noticing across the street
a woman on the roof of a tenement that's
burnt to a seaweed crisp
its coffee-stained sheets unable to hide
the naked rooms inside
This building sagging slightly to the left
barely held together with wire hangers
pouts over the junked cars
climbing its doorway like spiders
And amidst all this American novelty
and façade of celebration
the woman washes her family's clothes
scrubs each shirt, each pair of pants
each mud-stained sock
unable to rinse out their future
“Se sirve el almuerzo,
langosta deliciosa para todas
las señoritas hermosas,” the owner says
unfolding a blanket of food
his wife and children catering to us like royalty
filling our cups till they overflow
basting our plates with homemade salsa,
succulent lobster in melted butter
rice, beans, and warm corn tortillas
individually wrapped
The mariachi band is still playing
my friends are laughing and clapping in rhythm
dancing on the rooftop
even the sun decides to finally visit
But I can't eat
First published in Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, (Gival Press, 2009)
Synthesis
for Gloria and Bill
Climb the spiral staircase
to the playground I built for you in heaven
where I laid down a magic carpet of artificial grass
planted Cacti in boxes
and collected just enough lawn chairs
so we can see beyond the power poles
twisted wires and polluted air
I built it while you were away
Now we'll talk at sunset
without being blinded by the western glare
turn our backs on the ominous ocean
a few minutes a day
watching the birds fly overhead
here in our make believe world
two stories closer to God
Perhaps we’ll even fall in love
all over again
First published in All in the Family Dec 2010, Spillway Publication
Daisy Rae Black
from Jardine’s Jazz Club, Kansas City
I couldn’t help noticing her at the corner table
taking in song, sipping on tea,
sitting in her white dress with matching gloves,
Pillbox hat and cherry smeared lips
“I’m Daisy Rae Black,” she shouts,
I come all the way from St. Joe, Missouri, to hear jazz”
Every Thursday she drives an hour and a half
and stays till the very last note
“I’m 90 years old, and I play a mean organ”
She sits like a question mark
and talks to the band
their rosy cheeked friend singing along,
tapping her tiny bent fingers
swaying to the melodies peeling back the years
untwisting her fate
so she can breathe again
I imagine her putting on her Sunday best,
filling in the lines where her youth once stood
with baby blue shadow and pink sun blush,
teasing her white sea of bobby pinned curls,
shining up the past of her patent leather shoes
escorting her diamonds and pearls
and improvising her way back,
to Jardine’s
Woven Voices, Scapegoat Press 2012
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