"Oye, Miguel, gringo, that costs a peso a minute, and there's a two-peso connection charge," my landlord says, interrupting with his usual perfect English. I'm calling Maria from his little restaurant in the family's building on Fourth Street, across from the park.
Only a moment before I asked him about the phone bills for May and June, since I am certain I have toll calls to San Diego on them, made before I went across to house-sit. But Agustin made that dismissive gesture with his hand and hissed. Literally hissed lite smoke from his tight lips. Then, seeing my glance at his pack on the steel kitchen table, he said, "And don't be smoking my cigarettes, either."
I patted my pocket where my pack sits. Red. Not white lite.
In a few more minutes I will sit in the park a block away, writing these words. From now on I will call Maria from a pay phone. That, too, is a peso a minute. But no connection charge. Or is it that first peso which disappears so quickly? Whatever. Toll calls to Mom and family are listed on the bill, they're easier to reimburse -- and I'll be making a bunch of those, since my mother's birthday party is the first weekend of next month. She'll be sixty. (Sorry, Mom... I told.)
After a smoke, I'm bound for the library, except... it's rather nice just sitting here, watching the world circle slowly around the bandstand.
Palomas flock for tortilla bits.Atencion! shouts the
bandstand clownschool starts in another two weeks
and then he'll only work
the weekendsCHIRP CHIRP CHIRRRRRRRrrrrrrp
blows his whistlewhile someone sits down next
to me on the same bench
and also begins writing.Does curiosity drive our eyes
onto each other's pages ?Mine are hungry, yes, to know
what words, palabras
sentences, frases
get written escrito
before that shrill
payaso clown whistle
wind blowing beneath
paloma pigeons'
whirling wings.Ach. Stupid purple prose
verse here heavy freighted
with excess rhyme weightrefrescos y palomitas estan
disponibles en la dulceriarefreshments and popcorn ("little doves")
are available at the snakebarbe as wise as, be as innocent as
clown, pigeon, pencil, pen
different things
on separate
pages.This other writer beside me
is smart to write
with eraser handybut I am
addicted
to ink .
Sometimes it feels better just
to sit and watch
and
listenwhile writing
nothing.
Silence.
el nino preguntaand then
que hora trae?tres y media
gracias....
Wind flutters my notebook pages
like paloma wings who rise, turn
and settle back to the ground.I cast no seed. Only words.
Inedible for birds.