Poetry

A nail gun fires into wooden scaffolding up the hill—
the skeleton of a roof unfolding above the trees.
Rat tat tat. Bunk bunk bunk. There is music,

“Look up, my dear, at the dark
Constellations above.”
“Dark stars under green sky.

Or else a room, and in the room five voices speaking at once and what delicious babble “sherbet” and “velvet” and “purple” and “fragrant” and “loud”—

Cuando todos los siglos vuelven,
anocheciendo, a su belleza,
sube al ambito universal
la unidad honda de la tierra.

Like two wrestlers etched
around some ancient urn,

we’d lace our hands, then wrench
each other’s wrists back