Chan Chan
Wandering through mud city
pack of wild dogs guarding
an oasis on this desert afternoon
waiting for the bus to pass
backs up against a concrete slab
advertising beer, we touch lips
and list ways to bury a body

Chan Chan, O sacred palace
ancient mud city
labyrinthine walls
slow melt beneath years of rain
ages of merciless sun
Shards of funeral urn
between thumb and finger
then dropped back into dust
fellow pilgrims photographing
empty courtyards, looted tombs
Ritual repeated

Come and learn of the exotic
gods who rule here
Learn of moon birthing sun
sun birthing desert
desert birthing mud
Once a land of moon and twilight
            moon and wave

A rumbling as the sea drags
stones back down the shore
stone to sand, sand to glass
shards of bottles between
thumb and finger for a moment
dropped back into dust
Ritual repeated

Alone now among the mud,
cracked and dry
chamber to chamber
stretching to the sea
crumbling and barren
once seething with hot industry
teeming with ants of labor,
ceremony, sacrifice
dangerous tentacles of desert plants
sit sharpening their thorns
night blooms ache for shade, withering

Alone we are and lost
in a shriveling city of mud
Chan Chan, sacred palace – abandoned
only bones and shards
skeleton of mud, flesh stripped
and eaten under many moons
a pack of howling dogs devour
We crawl amid your ribs
photograph your dried cavities
sweat and salt, salt and thirst
Ritual repeated

Backs up against
a concrete slab
your lips, an oasis
in this afternoon sun
We list ways to bury a body:
Entombed, inflamed, at sea,
mummified, commemorated
with slabs of concrete, ashed,
scattered, scavenged, sautéed
We touch lips
the only moisture
in a mud city



Afternoons in Taganga
We live in a house by the sea
cement and stone
palm thatched roof
The wind blows dry and swift
day after day, night upon night
bringing mountain ghosts
ones that steal about the house
robbing us of our memories
and small change – things
we won’t notice are missing

You lie silent in the hammock
under the mango tree
plotting your next move
in the great war against the ants
I fry eggs and mosquitoes
in hot butter, humming
along with the sizzle
Our neighbors swallow
scorpions whole, turning red
and violent as the poison wriggles
through their veins and their children
chew on Styrofoam blocks

Of late, the air stinks
of smoldering plastic and rain
The ghosts are growing more bold:
This morning I forgot my mother’s
face and you did not have any
money for the eggs and passion fruit
Perhaps, if we sleep
with the windows closed…



Leaving Barranquilla
Soaping and sluicing
off the mannequins
firm silver breasts
and buttocks in exacting
sun of the Caribbean
headless and plastic
morning after Carnaval

Streets, market, all
at half mast
only one juice lady
squeezing shriveled fruits
her blender, the sole ruckus
in this quiet heat
the rest boarded up
three days of sour fish
too-ripe mangoes
rot trickling down dirt roads

Barranquilla, one eye open
and sweating, sweating out
the party, cantankerous
and pimpled. Your wide
avenues, still and shaded
El Mercado, unhappy
to see its visitors,
closed for business
         or pleasure
but which was which
last night it didn’t matter

Goodbye Barranquilla
wash your mannequins
and put them away
save them for next years’
parade – older then
a bit more sag and wrinkle
but good in a way
only ripe fruit can be


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