This first poem I haven't titled yet.
It's fairly new.
The airplanes were taking off slowly, but the pilot I drew
took off and flew between mountains
like a cavalry officer riding to the Fort
with names of the Indians.
Next to me there was a cowboy, very dark,
given to indiscreet questions such as won't you
settle for me?
He left at Torreón.
I sometimes think that I could have gotten off
the airplane, the Aeronaves de Mexico plane, with him.
When my husband met me in Mexico City,
he would have greeted no one, but a blonde lady
with a poodle who descended to a deluge of flashbulbs.
I had never seen her before.
Her agent, her manager, gentleman on their way
to do benign murder in banks, a honeymoon couple,
the scientist on his way to a convention of atoms,
but not me.
As we landed, mountains flapped like blue chickens
carried by peasants.
The summer sun sank and screams like a widow
in India burned in suttee.
Fire wavering its perfect veil about her imperfect bones.
Bellboys and the Hotel Vasco de Quiroga smiled at me.
The elevator man soared up and down all day
like the breath of a donkey.
I came back on a train with red curtains
and arrived before dawn.
A customs man vaccinated me.
Sworn back into this country, I arrived
snapped from my moorings.
Torreón retreating among places where I can never disembark
now.