At El Fin del Mundo,
snow claims all seasons,
as if here the demon fell, the peaks his splintered limbs, torn wings
and a hand of a thousand fingers reached out,
to hold him down,
to lift him up,
but where the fingers touched, they stuck.
Pause, hear
their voices:
one the echoing edge of broken ice,
one the rushing wind of water.
Here is the thumb, thick and blunted,
the flat nail a gloss of ice over the surface of the lake.
The palm holds white like breath in winter, blue like a second moon.
The hand advances and carves out the landscape,
the land recedes and caves in the snow.
A pirate with a drunk mustache leans an arm around
the fisherman’s shoulders, and invites the fisherman to whiskey.
They watch while la sirena dances salsa, her fingers
beckoning to the men like little silver fish,
her hair black like wet kelp.
The fisherman stares at the sparkling
siren on the dance floor. He dreams of silver fish.
The pirate follows his gaze, offers in broken English:
“Shee is my cosin. I weel meet her to you.”
The pirate also dreams of silver.
The fisherman tests the strength of the line and accepts.
La sirena slips into a seat beside him. Her fingers
flicker along his forearm, the table, his thigh. She asks:
¿Por cuánto tiempo has estado en Peru? ¿Dónde estás alojado?
¿Has viajado a Cusco? ¿En que trabajas?
The fisherman smiles:
this is not his language.
La sirena lifts a silver fork to his mouth,
dreaming of marriage and the future.
The pirate smells of fish oil.
Water water water don’t
think about water or
black ash. I need a
shower, a lake, a swim,
wash off the whole desert.
Maybe they’ll come get us. Maybe they’ll find our bodies out here on the road, all dried out, covered in this awful black sand, bits of blonde poking up out of black ash.
Where are the clouds
or just one tree? If there were just;
that park ranger said nineteen kilometers. Someone would pick us up, he said. He’d tell them to look out for the Americans. No one’s here. We’ve got to be
nineteen kilometers is how many miles, five thousand feet,
two thousand yards, two thousand meters, twenty thousand meters, four miles? no
no that can’t be right, one mile, one point five kilometers, three kilometers, two miles,
eighteen divided by three, six, six miles? Six times two, twelve miles? We’re supposed to walk
twelve miles? Two of us, two liters of water, twelve miles? Who’s idea was this?
Ash in my mouth,
on my face, on
my boots,
car, I hear a car.
s
Dános un vasito de
agua por fin.
Something’s kicking up black dust back there
or water.
A shadow darkens the yellow tablecloth,
descends in snatching hands and
high voices, demanding
me regale esto
me regale esto.
An old woman grabs my Coke,
throws it back, passing the last sip
to a small girl beside her.
I forget to say Déjanos, or Fuérense, or
Váyanse a la mierda.
I almost forget to move at all, but I
slap their hands
from the bread on the table, my sunglasses.
The waitress brings another Coke, says
you’re lucky, for foreigners.
North Face had enough money
to buy half the top of southern Chile,
certainly enough to buy off this circus of
gypsies,
who slip the zipper down on their tent
and stumble out from a pink tarp
to pipe native songs
through monkeytree flutes
and use a half barrel drum to cook
alpaca and carry the beat.
Their chaos protests consumption
and consumerism.
There is wine, there is rain
and there are Ro, Karen and
Sergio with pale green eyes, saying in this
park paid for by capitalism:
We hate Americans,
but we love you.
Jenny Morse is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois—Chicago. In her free time she tries to travel as much as possible and will complete her visits to all 50 U.S. states this June with Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Her work has been published in Menacing Hedge, flashquake and The Notre Dame Review.
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2013
SUPPORT THE ARTS
DONATE TODAY
GET A FREE T-SHIRT!
By accessing this site, you accept these Terms and Conditions.
Copyright © 2010-2013 TheWritingDisorder.com ™ — All rights reserved