Dear Sister

Winter is ceaseless ~ streets ~ phantom trees caged in fog ~ light and its beautiful doom ~ The scent of leaves ~  green and dead ~ arrives through windows like a timid fantasma ~ There are tiny spiders in the eaves ~ the color of forgettable stones ~ I don’t have the heart ~ to kill them ~ Today ~ I found a squirrel ~ dreaming ~  the sleep of the young and unknowing ~ I pray for a world ~ scatter-starred with that kind ~ of tenderness ~ Nothing hears me ~ Let’s pretend ~ the clock is frozen ~ in its sturdy shroud ~  that our 3,000 weeks ~  are the start ~ We began ~  in the land of mangroves and abandonment ~ hibiscus and metal ~ egret and engine ~  predator sun ~  skin, so much skin ~  sky with its commandments ~  sky like no other ~  concrete rising ~  falling ~  altars and offerings ~ cigar smoke santos hope gold velas blood gallina rum ~ shells to guard the crossroads ~  the drilling eyes of reptiles and men ~  my people who I long for ~  my people who I hide from ~ My sister,  I write these words ~ a lifetime away ~ at the foot of the mountains ~  another sea ~ vaster galaxy ~  primordial and without memories ~ House of my nightmares, gone ~  Graves unattended ~ You ask me why I left ~ I say I am a triple horse ~  forever running ~ to the next to the next to the next ~  Where will I end? ~ My baby cronedom has arrived ~  The track now points to my bones ~ in flecks or stashed beneath ~ the thorned trunk of a ceiba  ~  I know just the one.