Wishing Game
There were two women in the garden
and between them, ponds opened up
wide enough to hide both for a time.
They ran and ran far away as long
as they could, though paradise
was a map for runaway wives
and you’d soon end up back
again to the original point.
Swimming was the same.
They were moody, scrubbed harder
and weeping between hiding places;
as well as that the man pursued
them and sprang them out from
under hemlock and water.
I have been gifted with choice, he said,
the mother of all beings, to replace
the dirt that does not talk to me.
And he declared pure one hand
pulled out of pond, a leg and a
bit of face and length of hair,
and so she was chosen and thus birthed us,
humanity spilling out like angelic desire—
Trees ran and twisted from the earth. Fruit sprung like stars.
Afterwards,
the women sought out the seraphim
to join together their grouped wings
as shelter, rustle in silence underneath
the foaming sun, newly formed scales
to glisten under fountain and sweetness
of water, hiding their long necks with
their loosened hair.
Stars grew underneath us. Sickness and debt took all men away.
Nectar formed in our ponds and we were not yet bid to leave.
More babies grew from the ground though the feathers on their backs
were more like birds and they opened their beaks to be fed.
The snake held back a little longer. Sin gathered like sweat
and crusted like dew at the trees. Every day, the jungle grew,
soaking us. We drank from the jawbones of water serpents
and asked if we were not meant to stay.
Ask us if we did not warp and buckle, an oasis below Heaven,
to spring like cancer and rain the land in bad brew.
Let us know if we did not smile, all of us, when you asked
if we did not have more spoil to give, if we were not
overrun in bounty and flame, seasoned with composite
children, why we could not accept the exile offered us,
why we had charred to annihilation our own kings.
Caretaker
Yes, he asked you for a sandwich.
It was 1992, Hurricane Andrew already flooding
your basement and tearing apart your orange trees,
the two of you hiding out the category 5 in a closet.
And yes, you did it. It was 2 a.m. but you took
your flashlight to the powerless kitchen
and made him a roast beef sandwich.
You even put on mayonnaise.
The refrigerator was dead silence
and medium warmth, but you had not the heart
to throw away the food for him, despite the rotting
the future would bring, the maniac scents
you knew would tide out and drench.
There is no need to explain.
In case he might need nourishment, in case
your husband might call out your name.
You are beckoned and summoned and loved.
Matilde, Matilde,
the hurricane says to you
from outside the windows
besieged and surrendering,
from the garden leaning
and whipped, in pain,
a shedding of fruit and citrus.
Estoy aquí, estoy aquí,
you almost say in turn,
the roast beef offering
in front of you.
You knew his hands
were useless without golf clubs,
without air, without bread to hold,
small tasks to complete,
to order others and to proclaim.
You knew this was a trial,
bad story, the world that demanded
everything from you, another complaint to
seed and grow inside your skin.
Pain and sons and meal preparation
and exile. You would greet
the hurricane later. You knew.
You knew.
