fun

Also in this section:
It could have been far worse --- they might have given you a yuppie puppy
Poets' corner

The Laundress in Trujillo

The first thing I noticed were her stubby fingers

tucked next to each other

exactly so

And then my stack of undergarments

folded as they had never been

And then the way she awaited payment

in the kind of exchange that one expects

when one has done what they promised.

She was a short woman

and I had not noticed until she looked up

that her eyes had the look

of one who has sorted everything out,

not clouded and rheumy

in disappointment of what one has been given

but crisp and definite in color.

I was grateful to know this,

that this was possible.

I did not bring a bag,

Not thinking that this was the Third World,

So I gathered up my clothes in my arms

like a tourist with a bargain

and I walked out onto the cobblestone streets.

Diego Santiago  2/8/07

The Shadows of the Dead

Walking back and forth,
clearly to be seen,
he wore a cross that was much too big.
His stiff white collar had been tucked away
to indicate he was off duty
though there was more about the man
that you should know.

It was the Spitfire pin in his lapel,
and the manner in which he set his faith aside
to strut before the line of women,
all waiting to forget
the horror
of Hamburg on the night the Spitfires came.

It was as if he was making another run,
and in the meeting of their eyes,
memories of the flames returned --
shadows of the dead left in the streets
the city melting
people drowning to escape the storm of fire,
and the unremitting punishment for being wrong.

I saw it all --
the boorish pleasure stamped
in the former pilot’s brow
signaled his desire
to penetrate the down lidded
one more time.

Diego Santiago 17/8/07