The night is blue and cool in Mexico. Outside,
a naranja moon looms, sliced by the slats of my
shutters. It is Mary’s night. Ave Maria’s rang
in the stone streets just hours ago. Purple shrines
grew in dirty crannies like scabs over wounds.
This morning, I found myself
in a crooked church, staring
at a smiling statue. The candle
flame of my gaze licked at the light
in her eyes. I asked her for you.
She seemed like the kind of girl who would
understand this love, this hungry fire that will
not die, that feeds on everything, on stones
and steeples and candlesticks. Always, its blue
flames lick at the edges of the shrine of my mind.
The bells are ringing, even now, and there, a confused rooster
calls out the hour, a cackling town crier. Tonight, children laughed
late, slurping helados and blowing bubbles with orange wands. But
at last, they are asleep. I swing open my shutters, look down into
the window below me. I can see brown boys coiled in their beds.
Coiled white in my bed, a smooth
snake with a licking flame tongue,
I think of you, burning the blue night
with my Ave Maria’s. Her name
on my lips tastes like fire.
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