Teddy-bear Cholla

 

Out in the desert,

where you left me,

I turned to cholla.

 

I looked soft to touch,

but anyone who tried

got the wicked barb

you left behind.

 

I crawled my way

across México,

not once,

but twice—

 

where nurses

exchanged the sweet mints

in my purse

to meds.

 

I fled,

and found myself again—

peering into the

the dark, dewy eyes

of children

selling chicle

on dirt roads

near the freeway

where the poems lay.

 

I gave all my money, eagerly,

into their beautiful brown hands.

 

Now, the dive bar,

turned used bookstore,

holds my chair

with a well-read copy of

The Captain’s Verses—

 

my pirate saying,

pull up, mi rama robada,

 

I’m buying.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

Teddy-bear cholla has a soft, cuddly appearance, but is quite a prickly cactus.

“rama robada” is a reference to Pablo Neruda’s poem, “La Rama Robada” (“The Stolen Branch”) in The Captain’s Verses.

 

For Fireblossom’s Word Garden

and

dverse Poetics:  Left in the Lurch