Words as Seeds
 
I heard a poet say she went to Mexico

and returned with four fresh poems;
I pictured these as crisp, earthy
heads of lettuce, which she declared
when she crossed the border,
green leaves sprouting in fertile musing rows.

I crossed the border at Algodones
but unearthed no poems of my own.
Homeward, I disclosed only
the peacock feathered earrings
I haggled for with a boy in mirrored sunglasses.

On the return flight I sprained my ankle
falling from the final yawning step
the airplane laid on waiting tarmac;
 it left me vivid with contused tones--
bright changing shapes,
like the flock of nestled warblers
that perched in persimmon trees
beside the airport terminal.

Perhaps my poems were part

of those fading bruises,

they held a certain dark romance;

their colors rose and fell

like the heart of a people--

declaring the faces of street vendors,
the border patrol in white SUV’s,
and the natives laboring in lettuce fields,
dropping their words as seeds

into the loamy rows.