LOVE IN THE TIME OF NAFTA

by Susan Briante

For weeks it has been the same: the volcano spits steam without flame; the mountains stand useless; trees full of leaves and not enough sun to muster shade.

The rebels are captured on the cover of Newsweek; and nobody does anything about a waitress’s salary; and the lemons getting sweeter; and the dusks ripening pink as wounds.

Driving north on the Periférico, a man looks up at a billboard and wonders about the name of the color being used to paint a rouge on Brad Pitt’s lips. (Vermeil). He does not, however, notice his wife has not spoken to him for three hours.

The books she reads are getting longer. She has lost her faith in bottled water.

The coins she presses into his palm are worth exactly half of what they were yesterday.

This poem first appeared as part of the chapbook True to Scale (Phylum Press: Amherst, MA).