Cuernavaca 1997

In Mexico, the time after noon is the slowest:

the sun stray grass and old tortilla in the air

while a boy with Caravaggio eyes bargains to make 

his sister white with a handshake. A new dog, 

splayed keenly in the dust, watches a moment, lulls,

then tracks a fly along an edge. Taut

between the sockets of the shanty, light and space are

slender wrists that spark with age; visitors kick up ripples

of it that turn, fade, and go limp in the heavy center of the room.

When they leave, the granite father sets his roof of tin aright;

his wife grinds corn and turns out the pot of feces and blood.

© Jamie Bradley