cranes of buenos aires

in buenos aires when they are in love
cranes put their wings around each other’s waist
and dance the tango like it was their last day on earth

you should see them perched on the cadence of their passion
the way their feathers almost glow in their stillness
and how their cheeks press softly against each other

when the music ends and every car lights up the sky
of buenos aires only the warm shell of their hatched eggs
tells you that love south of the equator is an endangered specie

graceful and fragile
un tango pájaro

why cranes dance

i think of their thin legs and wonder
what strong conviction might have them
stand up without the smallest hint of justification
for how they’ve chosen to live their lives

such feathered bodies suspended on stilts!
such disregard for what we may be thinking of them!

the sign states that their dance is part of mating
i think they dance because they learned to love themselves

an ethics of love among birds

to stand on legs so thin is an act of heroism
perhaps that’s why they’re born with wings

but to love is to mate
and to mate is to stay and
to stay is to elect the dignity of staying

it all comes down to choosing
where your life is meant to hatch

choosing the risks
choosing your thin legs

poemas para mamá

Life, as always, has a way of keeping you, pulled away from things as considering your birth. I flew to Cincinnati, and had but few thoughts about the day.

As I reflect back on this business of being born, the gift of being alive, the honor of being on this earth, I think of my moher who gave me life. She was either the whole maker of my being or the decision of some destiny that made her the guardian of my spirit.

The next four poems are in her honor.

the wish

i dreamt my mother was alive

and young again

buenos aires in the fifties

sitting at the beauty parlor

getting her hair done

she’s happy

it’s saturday and she’s happy

i dreamt she is as young and i am old

I remember

nodding at her

and that she smiled

i remember i only wished the best for her

farewell

my mother passed away in the back of a buenos aires taxi

her friend thought she was sleeping

my mother loved taxis

on buses she was somber

circumspect like a locksmith

attending to the groove that would unlock a single door

but in taxis she’d come alive

they were a luxury she let herself enjoy

delighting in the traffic

counseling the driver

on joyous purpose

in the back seat she would imagine

what ease of means might be

had she not chosen to be ashes scattered where my father’s were

the hearse would have been followed by a caravan of black and yellow cars

you would have seen old and young men

driving without passengers in mourning for my mother

for a change trucks would not impose their size and cut anyone off

and the lights would turn green as they approached each corner

i think she would have loved to know

that they all came to pay respects

a line as long as a pedestrian’s eyes could see

bus drivers would suddenly stop making fare change

and bow their heads

at the eulogy the priest would raise his hands and slowly say

farewell beloved passenger

may thy scent of vinyl that always brought you joy

accompany you to heaven

farewell

the ring

for maría esther

 

my mother used to tell us

about a ring

that was stolen

it was summer

a public pool

at the end of an endless bus ride

my brother and i would follow her

into a wooden

tunnel she called

locker room

and undress among women’s

stares that made us feel like aliens

but the story said nothing

of long distances

run down bungalows

or the moss

establishing its capital at the bottom of the pool

the story would go on

about the ring

–so pretty and made of gold–

how she left it on the bench

and this one woman

took it and denied taking it

how the police did nothing

how the woman walked

away among the palm trees

slowly

victorious

my mother’s cheeks

glistening with rage

my mother told the story many

many times

as if there was something in it

someone

at last

might hear

and relieve her from retelling it

my mother carried trusting

as a penance

yet innocence

surrounded her

like a ring.

atlas’s wife

my grandmother lived across the convent school

where anyone catholic sent their girls to learn

the docility required to bear one child after the other

that was the place that taught my mother

to be a woman

that was the tattered map her mother offered

to have her find her calling

her joy

the final shape she had to take

to appease the dark

my mother was my father’s muse

recipient of his brooding

atlas’ wife

he kneeled under the world

and she stood before him

the weight he bore became

the heft she carried

my father treaded the waters of his nature

my mother wept exhausted

after saving the world

all by herself

praise

i stood out on the sidewalk outside the mcallen texas airport
-the cars humming as they waited for those who are flying back-
while my body received the warm wind as a forgotten gift

if the wind could taste like anything
it’d taste like honey or a hint of honey
or even a faint leaf of mint at the bottom of a cup

bodies are like dogs that every night sleep outside
and every morning are ecstatic
because they never thought they’d see you again

like the mexican grandparents who blossom
into smiles when their granddaughter comes out
so happy in her white dress
with red roses the size of red roses

for all i know they had only been apart one day
but they receive her as one receives beauty
for the first time

like my body received by the warm breeze
a blessing of dogs’ souls that forget that what they love
will be there the next day

you
the warm breeze
red roses the size of red roses

crows

my father whose penance was a thorough memory and

and a frail heart that broke like a branch falls on the silence of snow

my father had a crow that called him from the depth of its wing

pecking at every word he wrote

 

my father whose education was remembrance

clawed upon the noble cortex of his brain

watched his mother dry the dishes

and learned too young to soothe her silence

with the tissue around his heart

 

memory burned like children’s fever burns

throughout the parents house

memory was a crow’s wing

suffered feather by feather

yet each morning

my father cracked his shell

 

each morning he hatched out of his past

walked to the bathroom

shaved

and went to work

 

with the persistence of the crow

with his mother’s tears dried on his wings