PIEDRAS NEGRAS 2009

PIEDRAS NEGRAS 2009 It was in those days in that starkly bare, shabby Piedras apartment in summer’s sweltering heat of sleepless nights sweating, drenched wondering, thinking what next? In those days plagued by palmetto bugs scurrying roaches flea bitten, those days of dizzying hunger relieved somewhat by Saladitas smothered in Valentina sauce and food pantry peanut butter brought from Eagle Pass. Those days hoping that my passport will clear while lacking all of the required documents those days waiting for a job any job -even in the onion sheds though knowing that without a contact phone how can it happen? Those days listening to the bitter, drunken ramblings of neighbors it was there and then that the exquisite flower of my poetry came to full bloom- a tropical jewel lustrous as a butterfly’s wing sweeter than any guayaba more stunning than an orchid. It was there that it pierced the dark, choking heaviness there, that it rose as a star- my epiphany truer and more constant than any lover or friend a demigod to which I am bound unto death Oh, death of which I’ve lost all fear. .