It is early evening,
yet feels like late:
the sun swallowed by the horizon already
The day has a curfew here:
The mountains a protective mother
taking the sun safe in her arms
My days are slow and disorienting
I am lost in a language
I don't yet understand
I am swimming in the sea of it,
on my back,
looking to the stars for answers,
because my own ignorance
is the current that keeps me still
A piece of paper money
and I am adopted mother of five tortillas
hot from the grill,
flipped three times
I hold their round warm bodies
in my hand
I see them from conception to consumption
Their blood and bones line the streets:
tall full fields of corn
The nubile body
formed in patty-cake hands
Ground corn
just awoken from cold stone slabs
Like clockwork,
the clouds slip over volcanic mountains,
blanket the busy
and put to rest the hectic afternoons
in a shower of rains
Rain like soft fingertips on your face
The sky reminding us all
that we are penetrable and passive
under the caress of cloud drops
on a warm afternoon