Karin's Hands

What fine hands are these that
unravel and show themselves to me?
What boughs unknown have such hands
felt, caressed and touched?
In which tree and stone and shore have
I seen these twisting lines before?
(They cry with the private anguish of history.)
(They tell me strange tales and fill my eyes with jungles.)
(They certainly aren't mine.)

What joints so delicately placed do
bend and grin and complicate?
Why oh why are sudden nails now
red and specked then white and pale?
To where can finger's travels lead when
climbing up from palm to wrist with devastating speed?
("a codo, hombro, cuello, espalda...")
(They beguile, they entrance, they.)
(They might be mine, at least to share.)
 

---

The World Spins

On a bending tangent broken,
split into hundreds of fleshy shards,
tumbling, spiraling off into black
pounding, repeating, pumping-
The world spins.

---

Striped Gringo Sweater

Tripping down zig-zag steps carved into an overgrown jungle of shacks and cats and graffiti,
wearing Doran's striped green + tan sweater,
thinking about the fundamental
and unbreakable
differences between the here and now and the you and then,
wondering if I can live on 2 hours of sleep per lunar month,
I almost miss the glint of an eye,
dark red, pale yellow,
and then another, and then two more,
shining moistly in the darkness.

Lost in Carrete

Three hundred fools are singing at the top of their lungs,
dancing in the street,
drinking interminable mountains of Escudo
and Crystal,
and Brahma,
smoking joint after disgusting joint -
paragua -
three hundred souls lost in Carrete,
splayed on the pavement, bouncing between bars, begging for por favor one more cigarette.

Some are just guests,
some are salvageable still,
some are on a slippery slope,
some have forgotten language -
some are cruel, but with good intentions,
some are nice, but with a vicious glint in the eye,
and some look but don't see.

All are more than happy to welcome a gringo or two with outstretched arms and bottles and bottles.
"Sit," they say, "join us in medication!"

Anibal Pinto
On the other hand is a worn glove,
warm
furry
ripped and torn
yellow on the inside
black on the out -
stained
soft
thick and thin in all the right places.
It's been through enough fights and riots and sleepless nights for six hundred gloves its size, but right now it rests handless in the gutter on the side of the road that goes through plaza Anibal Pinto in the middle of Valparaiso, Chile.

The Big Fun Secret

    But god-damn it hurts sometimes. If she hadn't been so immature - so cowardly - it could've been mutual. And what then? would the judicial stares, questioning and derogatory eyes, flippant little shoulder shrugs - would they have been any different? I think not. I leave Chile with a light heart, knowing I made the right choice in the last months of my trip - and not once, but any number of times. In breaking up with her, the right choice. In kicking her out that same day, the same. In letting her seduce me that one night two weeks later - in resisting all of her further seductions after that...
    Next time I fall in love, I won't keep it a secret from my lover.


 Transition

wait
look
crooked pigeon, cooing.
y en el fuego de su ojo
encased in glass
una bailarina amorfa y bella
esperando.
I am a log floating down
bobbing
dark
a river of coconut milk.
Hold me, please:
Smile-
Who are you?
who, me? Soy la princessa de pomelo y mora
Soy parecido a tu mama
pero mas joven.
And you?
Do you need a new friend?