CD Wright
LIKE A
PRISONER OF SOFT WORDS (1)
LIKE
HEARING YOUR NAME CALLED IN A LANGUAGE YOU DONÕT UNDERSTAND
LIKE
SOMETHING IN HIS HANDWRITING
Early in the day they were driving past the
small vineyard.
They were looking forward to walking around in
another town.
They could find a wrought-iron bench in a
garden of splashy flowers.
They might find a swimming hole.
Just beyond the vineyard they passed a dog
standing against the body of a dog.
They passed a number of one-story houses
sprouting rebar from the rooftops.
A man balancing bundles on his handlebars.
Plastic bags caught in organ cactus.
The town was twisted and steep.
The streets cobbled and shops full of punched
tin.
They sat on a wall and watched children play
in the dust.
At the waterworks women were washing mounds of
colored clothing.
A man walking his hog by a length of hemp
knocked on a door in an exterior wall
and was let in.
They walked down some steps into a candlelit
room.
The closeness, the warmth, the voices of
people eating together.
The sound of plates slowly being stacked and a
bird in the kitchen.
The disconsolate strain of a traditional song.
The full and weary ride home.
Just before the vineyard
the lights of the car picked out the standing
dog, the body of the other one.
LIKE A PRISONER OF
SOFT WORDS (1)
We walk under the wires and the birds
resettle.
We know where weÕre going but have not made up
our mind
which way we will take to get there.
If we pass by the palmistÕs she can read our wayward
lines.
We may drop things along the way that
substantiate our having been here.
We will not be able to transmit any of these
feelings verbatim.
By the time we reach the restaurant one of us
is angry.
Here a door gives in to a courtyard
overlooking a ruined pool.
We touch the spot on our shirt where the ink
has seeped.
The lonely outline of the host is discerned
near an unlit sconce.
Something about an oar leaning against a wall.
As guests we are authorized not to notice.
We lack verisimilitude but we press on with
intense resolve.
We are forced to admit we cannot reproduce the
smell of the linden.
But we can tell you when we are standing
in the sphere of its fluency, its mystery, its
heart-shaped leaves,
its special white honey, the precarious fabric
of its protection.
We appear less posthumous
against the silver exposures. When the wind
picks up
the sound track isnÕt audible.
LIKE HEARING YOUR NAME
CALLED IN A LANGUAGE YOU DONÕT UNDERSTAND
Since the day the bell was cast
I have sat in the bishopÕs carved chair and
waited my turn
with my feet crossed at the ankles, and the
leather of my huaraches
cutting into the hide of my foot.
From where I was sitting I watched the light
being drawn off
the magnolias in the Plaza de Armas
while the voices of the others choired an
evening.
I have risen to the lectern when the eyes of
the host summoned.
I faced the great open doors as the faces of strangers
acknowledged their own losses.
I saw the white trousers of the vendor
flapping in the dust
his body engulfed in balloons,
the children selling Chiclets dispersed;
the shoeshine boy putting away his brushes,
the sum of his inheritance.
I have read what was written there, said,
Gracias, and sat down again.
I have climbed the pyramidal steps and felt
winded and humbled.
I have stood small and borracha and been glad
of not being thrown down the barranca
alongside the pariah consul
in the celebrated book.
In every sense have I felt lonelier than a
clod of clay, a whip, a bolsa,
a skull of chocolate.
I have been lured by my hostÕs pellucid face
and the blue salvia
where the rooster is buried.
Though I have worn the medal of the old town with
forlorn pleasure
I say unto you:
Comrades, be not in mourning for your being
To express happiness and expel scorpions is
the best job on earth.
LIKE SOMETHING IN HIS
HANDWRITING
It was hotter back then.
No, it wasnÕt it had to be cooler, clouded.
A park down below where no one ever met.
But men were pulled by dogs along paths made
by the walkers.
And a nameless river through a photograph of
woods
proposed a nonlocal reality
that shimmered at the instant of its own
disappearance.
She bought the picture, brought it back,
propped it against drywall
where someone had penciled a message
she couldnÕt make out.
The end of another summer wandered across
yards
that werenÕt fenced or watered.
If it rained, it rained.
And then the rain inebriated us.
A yellow leaf floated toward ground
transmitting a spot of optimism
through a slow intensification of color in the
lower corner of the morning.
.