"Mariquita."
Mariquita.
She saw dancers on her pillow.
Men and women stripped-- stripes--
excuse me-- plumed, smiling, and twirling plastic toys.
Bears watched her from weed cages.
The afternoons were long and lean.
Coins fell through them, whole fountains of coins.
Silent as dry, flights of birds, and flights of birds.
Morning, she coughed up feathers and old purses.
And those other two, the same as she, fish
had eaten their brains.
The heart burnt to wrinkles.
Biting dreams and icy teeth, sales
reared over the hot fields, enlarging with the hours.
This time, she took her loins in her hands and danced.
Duff fell from her hair, tables rocked, silver turned to mud.
Slender men lay down to watch her and died.
For a while longer, the bear slept over the hill,
sweetly through the sun, through stars in the moon,
for a while longer.