In my hometown it was like January,

like January in Oaxaca, in Fortin

 

de las Flores, like Fortin

in the mid-forties, like the 40s

 

in December, like December

on the river, a forest of willows

 

half in, half out of water,

like the river in the picture,

 

like the picture above your bureau,

like your bureau filled to over-flowing

 

with feathers every color of the spectrum,

feathers blown through vowels,

 

through curtains of bougainvilla, going

on forever, forever as it formerly was,

 

in the lustre of a loved one’s luggage,

baggage to carrry lightly or solemnly

 

toss-off into the Bay of Fundy.

Thank you for four golden mice

 

who never wake me up at night,

for the pocket-size surveillance device,

 

for books which tell me nothing’s unakin.

In January it was like my hometown

 

in the 1940s in the middle of December,

December a cool glass of water at noon

 

in the summer, a clinking of cowbells

to signal it’s evening. I was seven,

 

four, eight, eleven, still unborn,

brother to my younger sister,

 

sister to my mother, father like a twin,

twins like vapor trails on clear nights

 

in October. You were my shadow

I dared not step into. You stood by

 

my shoulder, champion, angel, faithful

companion I dared not look in the eye.

 

What was it like for you?

Were you about to step into your skin,

 

like water poured from a pitcher,

like an ant into amber, like molten gold?

 

Was the gold like someone’s fortune

or folly, folly a moving picture you’d get

 

into for a quarter, when a quarter meant

more than a dollar, a dollar a bit

 

of a future you’d be expected to furnish,

I’d be with you to finish,

 

of a finish wearing the date of your birth,

polished with everyone’s hopes,

 

polished with everyone’s dreams,

lost in a basket of keepsakes.