Unit 5: Selection Vocabulary 1

morning dew
the muddy melon stained
with coolness

morning dew
the muddy melon stained
with coolness

...the general thinks
of his mother, how she died in the fall
and he planted her walking cane at the grave
and it flowered, each spring stolidly forming
four-star blossoms.

The parrot, who has traveled

all the way from Australia in an ivory
cage, is, coy as a widow, practising
spring.

he sees his boots the first day in battle
splashed with mud and urine
as a soldier falls at his feet amazed—
how stupid he looked!—at the sound
of artillery.

In the bare room
the bright feathers arch in a parody
of greenery, as the last pale crumbs
disappear under the blackened tongue.

the heady mix of smells from the open bins
of dried codfish, the green plantains
hanging in stalks like votive offerings

she is the Patroness of Exiles,
a woman of no-age who was never pretty,
who spends her days selling canned memories
while listening to the Puerto Ricans complain
that it would be cheaper to fly to San Juan
than to buy a pound of Bustelo coffee here

and to the Cubans perfecting their speech
of a “glorious return” to Havana—where no one
has been allowed to die and nothing to change until then;
to Mexicans who pass through, talking lyrically
of dólares to be made in El Norte

all wanting the comfort
of spoken Spanish, to gaze upon the family portrait
of her plain wide face, her ample bosom
resting on her plump arms, her look of maternal interest

as they speak to her and each other
of their dreams and their disillusions

the hunger of the fragile old man lost in the folds
of his winter coat, who brings her lists of items
that he reads to her like poetry, or the others,
whose needs she must divine, conjuring up products
from places that now exist only in their hearts