Grass shivering in a bamboo vase Crows circling in the yard for food, A constellation of three white chairs Arrayed in a sunlit clearing beyond. On the other side of this window pane A spider engineering a new silvery web, A call of a young blue jay from a nest Somewhere in the dense green woods Whistling through the arrangement Of rocks on this table, talismans for Two seasons. On my skin, sweat from Exertion, beneath it a river of blood Traveling through these lips, eyes And fingers, all instruments to touch These ever present yet vanishing things: Leaf, rock, feather, light and sometimes Even peace…

2003:08:09 12:15 Atlanta

I am entering and leaving rooms; In murals that embellish the walls Of various markets. Some are political Slogans, others show the daily acts; birth circling back into death, on cat paws, charting an elusive sleep.

Each mural mark the divisions, This part of me against the rest; Left against right, a sleepwalker’s Tug of war. All that is required

Is for someone to touch me tonight. If not in the name of love or lust, then because I am an warm object, A round stone, a curious trinket, A talisman for these swift years.

These eyes, angled jaw, these big lips, Mark what the astrological charts already show; a marked need for love. I am spinning around a strung wire, a wet cloth absorbing the rain, gaining weight; ever receding, never drying.

Waiting for some hand which will reach to provide the only acceptable heat,holding me against a body to dry. And then to wear like an inexpensive shirt, old and threadbare, finally reconciled into a fixed mural, one that shows us in a single and deep coiled sleep!

Where does weariness comes from? The sky outside, which can’t make Up its mind to be blue or black?

I am not journeying. I have to make A canoe for myself after I fell this tree With my pen and paddle my life up

The river, dodging the anacondas And various kinds of malarias, as I drag my dog like skin to where Maria

Stands and shivers. Her son meanwhile Is the silent sentinel over our harbor, Street children and the death squads.

What a miracle indeed it is to be alive! In the streets tonight a woman wraps Her leg around a man’s torso. Tango

Enables them to fall into each other, Mad flamingoes that seem to lash The evening twilight with their necks.

From the cafes spill yellow lights, pressed Out of the distilled grapes and knifes That glint as they slice the meat.

They have even announced the dates Of the carnival and you want to dance macarena. Only where does this weariness come from?