by
Marcela Sulak
They long to be devoured by a
wild traveler
who will rub them soft and
let them fall
to domesticate the earth.
They cannot wait to go. They bounce
in the beds of cargo trucks
they crowd the sidewalks
they beat upon the parking
lot and streets.
In the market they call out
the name of their price. They can always
be talked down. They don´t care
how many wrinkled bills you
press
into the hands of sweaty
women.
They don´t count the coins
nor admire
their portraitures. Sometimes they tear
the shopping bags and dive
into the street
or roll into the
gutters. The burst shell
of the mamón, one white
rolling sigh.
Even the established walnut
tree
over the Catholic school in
Germany
moans all night dropping
green secrets.
We rip them apart. Our
fingernails are yellow
our tongues bitter
brown. At this point
Beatriz pops out the bathroom window.
Her hair is loosened, her
shoulders bare
her face wet. She is smiling shyly. Like this
she is the flesh a mouth
would want to hold.
She offers to open the door
for me, a foreigner
who has no key. She must have
heard the dull thud
of the wooden door. I had not
called out. Even now her feet
are printing their wet leaves
across the floor.