--I’M JUST THINKING OUT LOUD HERE

Hurricane Javier

One of us is eating the other

While the gulls have lost their way

There are monsoons all around

Lifting cars off the roads

Shuttling cities to and fro

Tossing drug lords into trees

In the distance a baby wails

Along with the sour-coated wind

As the poorest of us float

Or swim

Or drown

Down a water gully without end

We heard it was coming

But not how hard

How fast

How sudden

Such is the news around here

A slow-motion bullet

Dragonflies will run the world

When everything finally dries out

Nothing really damaged

Nothing really changed

Stealing Baby Formula

Stealing baby formula

Is not as easy as you think

The aisles have eyes

The racks are cameras

The junk food is a caravan of spies

Stealing baby formula in a mercado

Is a ticket to a barred room

Beatings

Separation anxiety

And revisiting motives

But the baby formula is there

And the baby is way over there

Where you left it

The clerk has a gun beneath the counter

The floor is slick with spilled soda

Leftover blood

And piss

The air spiced like tamales

Flood lights buzzing,

Flickering like alarms or Morse code

And still you do it

Stuff and run

Fast as a frightened gecko

Never turning back

Not sure if

The gunshots are real

Or imagined

Each twhack! a reminder that

You’re under constant attack

That you’ve at least

Made it this far

Beach Vendor

She is a hundred years old

Or sixty

A slow tortoise

Slogging down a tawny beach

With a hundred colors

Slung over her shoulders

Across her back

Tied in a jangly turban on her head

Gems and stones

Some fake some real

All them discovered and  

Threaded together

By weathered brown hands

One piece sold

Means a tortilla to eat

Two pieces a slight lunch

Three or four a miracle

Under parasols

And palm trees

The lazy lucky rich ones

Shoo her away

Time and time again

While the tortoise goes on

Her babies

And their babies

And their babies’ babies

Starving at home

Mewling for milk

Gasping for air

The sounds out of their mouth

Sheer as a frail scarf

A hiss

Almost as if they’re repeating

The same word over and over--

Silver

Silver

Silver, please?

Well Played

The boy is my son’s age

A sixth the size of him

But dark as bark

Bony

A skeleton really

Yet smiling

With the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen

“Senor, magic trick for Pesos?” he asks

I hand him two US dollars

Tell him to get on with it already

But nothing happens

“What the hell was that?” I ask

He trots across the sloped beach sand

Still grinning wide

Giving me two thumbs up

Back in the hotel room

I realize he’s filched my wallet somehow

And I wish he was here

To watch me smile back