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Chattahoochee
River Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner |
Wild horses and burros
roam back home
grazing on fireland.
But, iced tea in her hand,
Grandma would say,
Come, sit a spell.
And that’s just what I
intend to do,
sweet tea,
with you.
For Mary’s prompt at What’s Going On? Silence.
I used “sit,”
but my grandma said, “set,” in her sweet Missourian way (which she also pronounced,
“Mi-zur-uh”).
It had us like fever,
humid and dark
in the back of that bar.
You, in that linen.
Me, in that dress.
Laughing at our waiter
with his dancing mustache
when he teased us
leaving half-drunk bottles
on the table
for something more intoxicating.
We were our own revolution.
A blaze of flower in my hair,
your melt-me smile,
and
our favorite salsa record,
volume just right.
For Shay’s WGWL
Our old town
lies at the bottom of a lake
like Arenal and Tronadora
in Lake Arenal.
New ones have sprung up
like wildflowers
around it.
But, they’re not the same.
Sure, they have
their beautiful distractions
like scenes from a movie—
views of snakes and jaguars
stretching themselves
near waterfalls,
a peacock shimmy-shaking
on the grass,
little pastel houses
clinging to cliffs.
But this isn’t what I want.
Never was.
Even back before we had money.
You know I’d live on love.
I’d sell it all and move
to Nicoya on the cheap
to feel that way again.
When I set the table for dinner,
and select a juicy tomato for the salad,
asking you what you imagine
chupacabra looks like,
I’m not just musing at random.
What I’m really saying is—
I’ve forgotten the mystery of you,
the wild smell of you up close,
and what it did to me.
I can’t even think of it now.
And so, I scuttle about
getting stuck
in the drying cement
of our resentments,
drowning for what
the fish only know now,
dancing around
our old town.
NPM Day 28