Now, Every Dribble Is A Work Of Art
A high place overlooking
unlacey underwear and goodwill tee shirts
(the water had come that morning, so: washday)
flying on the barbed wire that protected the sin shacks
from the theft of one rusted room — four children, no mattresses,
and a baby whose tears sounded dry and weary and to whom
sleep would not come to rest her little lungs
and further off, the roofs of the
dry town’s bigger architectural achievements,
and beyond, the sea was beyond, los cayos, el mar,
and to the right, the sleeping dromedary (in shape)
one of life’s mountains, that animal there, a companion and more,
an eroding monument of blown stone and deep orange sand called El Morro
the ever-opening tops of mango and avocado trees,
with a quiet timbre furnished by rushes of wind,
wide leaves rising and falling, in and out of the rooftop’s view,
moving at the urgings of this narcotic breeze of the hilltop,
and in it, one could sit, and do nothing, but be a wafted captive
to its dependable disposition, and not move, and then,
not move some more
this lavish roof sat above them all,
all them shanties, and all the homes going up the ladder,
its base, an endless tiled floor of faded designs,
one corner obscured by the landings of the land’s dust,
and busted powdery sea shells, cluttering the here and there:
(how did they get there?) (or who got them there?)….and too:
a cactus spindle the size of a stretching songbird
starved, barely green, burnt and leaning,
propped up on a popsicle stick of a stem,
looking still before flight, having laid claim some time ago
to an opening in the smooth shimmering white tile slabs
of molding, a hole indelicately chiseled to provide drainage,
a worthwhile afterthought of engineering, but
the aperture’s spreading quake lines were not
an ode to the artistry of the roof’s greyed creator,
practical: after the cactus roots had been watered on the inside,
the hydroplan included a bit of plastic piping
on the outside, cut diagonally
directing concentrated rainwater to a cubo two stories below
near the outdoor double washing sink
aside from that dusty fake flower in a waterless vase
on all four sides up top, in a classical setting for the sky’s
varied backdrops, hundreds of womanly columns —
three feet tall, properly spaced (eyes of blue) —
formed an elegant balustrade, age already splitting
their curves and bulges into many roads to travel, like the tops of
forgotten pastries on the bottom shelf, red string on the box retied
the column’s descriptive color, would still be too white,
but as tint chipped away,
patterns of grey green concrete revealed themselves,
a salted-air patina worthy of the Greek sun,
those low ruins…
and the glittering olive trees and hidden cicadas
that keep them company
When does night begin?
Night begins exactly when the sun sets,
Magdrugada, from madrugar,
Meaning to rise with the dawn,
high grey clouds, mostly decoration in the misty blue
somehow muted the fierce rays of el mediodia
shouldn’t el dia
be of feminine gender? (at least this noontime)
ay, the surprises in a grammar book,
bright clips in a Haitian girl’s undone hair
as she follows a pathway through the scrub brush,
happily,
then, what fun to think of music to find and practice,
and second drafting, once the first is mostly done,
has set a while, and endured a round illegible additions
but now:
un reloj de bolsillo
(pocket watch)
el reloj de pared
(wall clock)
el reloj de pulsera
(wrist watch)
un reloj de diamantes
…..
the roof’s weighty door squawked against itself,
rubbing iron rubbing, the wind cries,
this portal colored up in a classy yachting blue,
marine rich, not faded at all,
dashing, framed in a wide wall of unworn blinding white,
an inspiration from some luxurious memory, maybe unconscious…
and from out of this squawking loft juego, Monchito appeared
there to unscrew the ample plastic cover, turning a cap on a giant
gallon of milk, and inspect the all-the-rage-installed roof cistern
he peered in: “falta mucho”
(there’s a lot more room in there)
it was being filled because there was electricity,
to make the pump work and send up water
from the primary cistern — of blessed stone — leaking in the yard
conjugating was I, but I owed him conversation
he was dubbing me the son of all the Cuban orchestras he’d
collected during his recent three-month tour searching for music,
(his most Beat purpose for the visit) on shore leave from babying a yacht’s engine — along with getting his 58-year-old teeth done,
braces and all, oh did he smile them now! courtesy of Healthplan
A, available to anyone staying 30 days or more with 75 bucks US
he’d just seen Hitico,
and to my querying cara, he told me:
“you used to play with ball with him”
that was almost forty years ago, when I had been
the honored refuerzo* for Cristo Rey, Hitico’s barrio’s team,
so we agreed I’d recognize his cara, if not his name…
he’d just seen Hitico, and I said to say hello
*refuerzo in the region’s annual campeonato:
competing teams could import from another city, even nyc,
one ringer, as long as they could feed and house him,
and pay for his bus fare, and rum and beer each night.
Mis hermanos loved getting open shots off my hot-dog passes
when nothing seemed there but a wall of stop-the-gringo arms,
surprise bounces shoved betweenst my legs gave time for swishes,
or reaching for leading ones that came from around my back,
longly-aired sweeps that started from under the hoop, that set up
breaking targets who sometimes had no soles on their sneakers
(sheepishly revealed — canvas of Cons on top but with bare feet for
bottoms — only after the torneo), and my show-off eyes winking,
and it was all fun and hard, and yeah, fine, and long ago my Hitico,
when only three guards in the NBA had the green light for
boatshowting, and then only if the margin was large, only then
would the fear of the bench not loom over any failured hot lick
I should have said I’d go see him,
At least I’d been decent before I learned he was now bedridden,
forever: “ni siquiera una cia de rueda en el futuro.”
Why is it so important for me to learn the subjunctive instead?
or to guard my time to allow for soap opera diversions — the
drawing of primitive pastels where the result had to do with luck…
(I know what William Carlos Williams would have done.)
So why? Why?….Because I’m proud still to have been a refuerzo,
And want it again, yes, again, as I work in my seventh decade,
because I love the roof to be on, the high places to be in,
In others’ lives…(and shit, to be in another life, many of them)
A perch in comfortable, vanity-ridden, love-driven, basketball-dreaming breezes, some near-bougie, working-class-loving version
of Thoreau’s voluntary post-officer pension existence; am I honest?
El reloj de diamantes