I watch them ply the clay into crude ovals
and spheres and bodies and heads.
Egg yolk yellow for the hair
and bushgreen and black for clothing.
They take care to dot eyes on tan faces
with smiles that stretch the horizon of the head.
I stand at the kitchen counter
fashioning a meal from a bulb of garlic,
a tomato sliced with a plastic knife,
a chicken breast, bottle of vinegar and salt.
At the table we churn around the conversation of the day.
How we have begun to coax a life
from a new city out of swims in the river
and dinners beside bare walls.
How the water has begun to run free of rust.
Our new home now punctuated by scattered language--
the definitions of chorrera and
sloth flung with laughter and cautious joy.
Eventually we will come around to solve
the beguiling complexities of unmapped streets --
but you tell me that is the work of a lifetime.
Fortunately a lifetime is what we have.