| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
THE EYES OF LIFE AND DEATH Ann Reinhardt Cantu Didi Menendez THE TIENDA Timray
Jessica told me your eyes had turned “clear blue.”
I said your eyes were always olive green
with brilliant sunbursts; but when I saw them open
on your last morning, they were deep blue, dark, yet
clear, yes, like the view into another world.
What I thought of then was how Buck looked
the day I asked Fred to put him down, as
maggots began to teem in his black fur.
These images haunted and thwarted sleep
three nights after you were gone, although
I knew we both now felt more at peace.
But driving home Sunday, I was struck with the fact
that newborns’ eyes are navy blue-gray, and recalled
how Carl’s looked those first few days after he was born--
like they held secrets of the ages locked behind them,
answers to questions I’d not thought to ask.
So it suddenly felt fitting that we are born and die
with eyes the blue of vastness, seeing from beyond
this place we think we understand.
And if I want to see your eyes today, the way
they appeared in life as we know it,
I need only gaze into a mirror.
BIRD IN SPACE
His mother sat frail.
Her eyes ravens.
I spoke into a receiver;
a bail bondsman recited.
I pecked notes on white.
She asked in broken English.
“You love my son, don't you?”
The words echoed into receiver's ear.
I spoke Spanish but simply nodded yes.
The memory of her remains
like a bird in space. No air. Frozen.
She trusted me with her sorrow.
I kept my composure and made sure
her son flew the coop that night.
he sits outside the tienda, his store
tossing dice, shuffling cards
Shiva dances with Ate in the shadows
it is his passion, gambling
retiring inside when the sun drives them
we follow cosmic laws as do the bovines
he keeps a clean street
behind every man, so they say, and here he is
my early morning walks, dodging pails of water
women cleaning the streets
here and there a rare man amongst them
avenues breathing with the music of Mexico
permeating from behind the steel doors
and barred windows
strolling into his store our eyes meet, his roll up
this sortilege goes bad, sinistrous
he is out of garlic, onions, chilies, no papas
papas are potatoes or the popes
how the vegetables suffer
si belladoras, no refrescos o chilis
la manana es posible, he is down to his stash
in two, possibly three weeks the tienda fills
while his wife is replenishing the shelves
he is outside gambling, behind every man
the trees are in lavender blooms, littering
nature is such a shameless pleasure
streets have becomes rosaceous lanes
filled with dogs, children at play, iguanas in the sun
women play loteria on the sidewalk
the magic of butterflies passing in a tropical winter
i am off to another tienda
where the vegetables do not suffer
it is another day in the pueblo
trees caper in the ocean’s breeze
a tropical king complains in the branches above
while fishermen busy themselves along the shore
life is such a beautiful gamble
whether you be pope or potato
Miramar 95
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