4 de julio: costa verde
We turn the corner
and I see her
doubled over the seaside
bench in taut, iridescent blue.
Every movement, slight: fingers
skim the ankle, head
angles up, shoulders
roll down. Her partner
approaches from
behind, teardrops half-painted
beneath his eyes. When
he walks he walks
stilted, a rhythm: green coast.
Green coast. Grey water.
*
4 de junio: la casa en san Miguel
As a child I remember:
you kept a doll
in the annex window, staring
back into the main house to face
intruders, and in my mind
its yellow eyes fade.
Now I look out at twin
staircases as I sit
with you in my mother’s
childhood bedroom.
There’s no trash, so when
I hold your fingertips to clip
your nails I cup
the clippings too. We list
your brothers’ names, even
the ones who have died and
I find that if I prompt you
to say my name as part of a list,
you’re more likely
to remember it.
*
11 de junio
You’re eating on a day
when eating paralyzes you.
Out the window: wires
crossed, the stained
profile of a half-finished house.
Pigeons huddle on
a clothesline, sway
according to the wind.
The man who buys unwanted
items from houses is calling,
a meditation in
his voice.
*
13 de junio
Música llega desde
la calle. Trato de no
pensar en esas
calles, acostumbrándome
ya a la callada.
*
15 de junio
Stained lace curtains. An in-between
zone from kitchen to
garden. Today we count
together the walled-off trees. Today
the inset door is locked.
*
16 de junio
My challenge: always find
space to occupy. I sit
on the annex stairwell,
looking back through windows
like an aged doll. Last night
you said que sueñes con los
angelitos pero por
la mañana no me acuerdo
si aparecieron o no.
*
19 de junio
It takes your fingers
so long to find the rim
of a coffee mug. They run
through a heap of clothes, rise
to the level of my face, spill,
cut, touch, stray. You fall
without warning. I think of
the boy in the market, dropping
his ball again and again
just to see who would
bring it back.
*
20 de junio
Memory is every side of you, the side
of your bed where light hits
when the door is left open
a crack, the way you expect
someone to be with you
when you wake and when
no one is there, it means
he must be waiting
for you on the beach of scattered stones
where he played as a child.
We sit on a bench.
Across Avenida de la Marina,
the green light of a pharmacy.
We count hotel windows.
Más tarde tocamos tus boleros.
*
26 de junio
The privacy of your entrapment
is what terrifies me.
You search for your missing husband
beneath small objects, like a child
imagining that things and people can fit
where they can’t, that you could
find someone by tugging
on a stuck drawer or rearranging
the wedding silver, and desperation
lies in believing that anyone
can be lost anywhere, that you
could search the same
couch cushions for months, or years.
*
1 de julio
You don’t register
when I say I’m leaving.
Prométeme que no me vas
a olvidar – it’s an impossibility,
but you respond, nunca, nunca.
*
2 de julio
The taxi parks outside
at 4 a.m. but we turn
it away. We’re searching
for wedding rings, for things
we might have left in
wooden cavities littered
with bookworms.
As a child I remember a long ride
in the back seat the last time
I left Lima: distant hunched
airport, light receding.
We couldn’t fly out that day
and I had never been so long
from what I knew. I stared
out between driver and passenger
at musky yellowing lamps
and when we made it back to the house
through layers of coastal fog I eyed
my parents’ wedding portraits as if
they were an entrapment.
*
4 de julio: costa verde
Slow as grey water the driver
inches forward, pumping
his brakes while I internalize
the rhythm of chalk
white waves
and then we turn the corner and
I see her
agachada sobre un banco
vestida de azul tirante, iridiscente.
Cada movimiento fino: dedos
tocando el tobillo, cabeza
hacia arriba, hombros
hacia la tierra. Se acerca
su compañero, lágrimas
mitad pintadas debajo
de los ojos. Cuando
camina, camina rígidamente,
un ritmo: costa verde.
Costa verde. Agua gris.
