Aug 13, Lunch, The Courtyard
By noon, the din in the courtyard
has become unbearable, like an opera
composed entirely of arias. Today, there are two:
there is Fabricana testing Mercedes as a child would,
only to have her stick swatted away, or eaten. And then
there is Mercedes' whimsical complaint the parrot no longer
knows Spanish: No more Amor y Sangre, she claims, only
the Indian melodies Rosario and Concepcion
coo through the bars. By now, both arias
are permanently imprinted on my cortex.
As soon as lunch is finished, I make my excuses:
I must write, go to my room, I say.
But it is nice in the garden, you could write here, no?
No, I say, I need my papers, my books. But it's
the dark I need, the dark, curio-filled room
where I go every day to lie down and listen
to the sound of my own breathing, as if
each exhalation were keeping the room
from crawling across the floor with its hundreds
of silver-framed pictures and dishes and
crosses of palm and the pink elephant soaps
and six broken telephones, because I am lying
in a midden bristling with someone else's life.
But the world is slowly making room for me.
Little by little, I have carved niches
for my things. There is space now
for my books, for Dubie, and Stern.
And my journal. And the small radio
that bleeds love songs all night.