Which part of me was left in Mexico
in this century’s first year?
I think of this now as I gaze across
the English Channel in the sun
before the storm sweeps in tonight
to blow more cobwebs from my life.
Beach gulls gather as if in church
or the food line in a refugee camp.
What I consider is not physical
like skin grazed in a meat market;
the innocent smell of death in
Tequisquiapan, rich in colour
and catholic kindness, yet poor.
Saw that in cataracts, grey blue;
eyes dead as el Rio San Juan, or dogs
left to bake beneath blood-ache
spines of garambuyo cactus
at the ankles of the Sierra Gorda.
Part of me is left to remember
the clean cold of December mornings
and the radiated heat from metal doors
in my casita on Saturdays in April
when trees start to weep for water,
when the rains fizzle in Zambia.
Part of me still hears its farewell
and senses the loss of summer in Chile.
In April part of me will still be left
to feel female mosquitoes bite
in East Texas, while what remains
will contemplate this same
slight curve of endless water,
in small proportion changed.
