dusk, y las palabras

Tonight life speaks with a Spanish tongue
from a park bench overlooking the Hudson,
sun dipping west of Ft. Tryon’s green to
the Palisades; eyes like sugared citrus in
twilight stir mojitos of elementary fistfights,
skateboards and arguing the Bible at eight, a

kid sleeping in a park for two weeks, Che and
Fidel burrowed ages ago in a grandmother’s
basement. Out from the hole of memory
into daylight you pull my own long forgotten
words, all of it sweeter to these ears from your
lips and I would have you speak las palabras
when I know only donde esta el baño and
pinche cabron. I know sonrisa from your
smile, but little else over a bottle of red and
candlelight, easy laughter under invisible
stars, where the breeze pulls the plastic of a
world that just got smaller closer and away.