WEBVTT

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A couple of people asked me
if I would read the next poem.

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It's about Mexico, a place
that most of us have been,

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Rocky Point.

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The title, "Four Pelicans
over Cholla Bay."

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Flying in file over
our beach at dusk,

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they are at last lost to the
headland of Puerto Peñasco.

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Arriving in our
gringo cars today,

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we found the road to Mexico
paved with beer cans bordered

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by decaying cows
unfenced as our eyes

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in this strange, dry country.

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Two tarantulas cross the road,
hairy hands looking for shade.

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All night, nearby, a
tourist light fireworks.

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Cold air comes from nowhere,
under sleeping bag edges.

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Sand toughens into fists.

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Our fire shown on waves
moving crosswise down

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the beach, reflections of
our eyes moving, unmeeting.

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We're afraid of what?

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Not desert or the sea bearing
up shrimpers, distant lights

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on calm black water.

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This anger we have,
the jaw's refusal

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to speak love for one another.

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We wake up with the
scum of night clinging

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to our spidered hands and faces.

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Whole but incomplete
unexploded firecrackers.

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Mullet pop in the
shallows like boys.

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And the porpoise boy serves
their need for fear and escape.

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So I lie alone with
the morning, one shell

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washed on a beach of shells.

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A lens gone into
bright moving water.

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Tropical fish through the
glass surface or a mask.

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And someone from the aluminum
city of houses on trucks

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skis above me, two
trails of quick white.

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Whatever it means, I don't like.

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And I'm wading out
of the ocean morning

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when there they come
around the point, the arrow

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signal for all clear.

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Satisfied pouches resting
on breasts and feet drawn up

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in the comfort of
balance sailing

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the air, four pelicans
over Cholla Bay.

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