Three Poems

When you come to understand that your life

Is a chrysalis hanging by a thread---

You need to be ready to split open.

You need to be willing to let the butterfly out.

 

The goddess of watermelons

Floats in the sky above Ciudad Victoria.

She wears a white silk robe

And looks down on all the fruits of the city.

She floats in from the white-stuccoed church

Nestled in the hillside of the Sierra Madre.

She comes to bless the sellers of sandias,

Whose red juices and black seeds run like arroyos

Over hardwood kitchen tables and rose-tiled floors.

The soft watery fruit fills the stomachs

Of field workers, nuns, professors of agronomy

Who come to bow at its sweetness.

The goddess of watermelons floats above Ciudad Victoria,

Patron saint of oval green melons.

Viento Libre 

The wind is free blowing across the fields

On either side of the road to Ciudad Victoria,

Capital of Tamaulipas,

City of watermelon vendors and outdoor statues of the Virgen,

City of nighttime mariachis, planets, stars,

Civil engineers and street beggars.

In el Club Nocturno,

Tucked in a corner

Of the Sierra Gorda Hotel lobby,

On a corner of the central square of the capital,

A trio is playing tangos and romantic ballads

Late into the night.

We sit at a table drinking shots of tequila—

Cien Años for a long life –

And listen to the drummer, keyboard player, and male vocalist.

The darkness is impenetrable in the mountains

That ring the city.

But here inside el Club Nocturno

The music warms the air like a brightly-colored sarape.

A big, muscular woman sits at a table, alone,

Smoking a cigarette.

She looks as if she came to this city

To work in a factory,

Or to mop floors of a government building.

Her hair is gray and tied into a bun

Behind her head.

The darkness is impenetrable in the mountains

That ring the city.

When a patron of the club,

A thin, balding man wearing shades,

Walks up to her table and asks her to dance,

She puts out the cigarette

And takes the floor with him.

Slowly, as they tango across the dance floor,

She is transformed into a hibiscus flower.

The blossoms of her youth burst open

Like sparks blown by the viento libre

Across the sky on diez y seis de Septiembre.