MULEGÉ

MULEGÉ

From the guilt of eating turtle steak
we make wild love after dinner
and the snoring from the family next-door
ceases as we rise into reptilian splendor
under the full moon.

Picking my way back from the outhouse
I am startled by darkened eyes sockets
on this cold desert where a wild moon
bleaches bones and eats the night.

A young rooster cries out in a child's voice
for some light in this village.

A passing car toots its horns at shadows.

Beneath a satellite disc moon,
huge, faint shadows of tarpon stir in the river.

Before this road interrupted sleep,
palm trees kept secret dreams.

In sleep, you stir, pulling my hips towards yours.

Each day, from my turquoise necklace,
I give a piece of the sky back.

There is as much future in those stones
around the neck of a woman
as there is in the desert sand.

I cradle the dreams of my grandmother,
fragile as paper, as you gather me in.

Sand in the bed fills our eyes and mouths.

11/271985
Mulegé, Baja, California