My voice bends over your neck.
There, to the small of the back
mouth mutes its touch.

I do not make phone calls, talk to anyone,
      let alone write. Even this letter
is mailed reluctantly. I move without cause,

The stories I fall upon are old and distant,
not mine nor my family’s nor my culture’s.

Leonardo da Vinci thought that you must make
the conquered beaten and pale, sides of the nose
wrinkled in bridges from nostrils to eyes,

But words strain in her ear, take on the nature of a malevolent fable

As your eyes are blue
you move me—& the thought of you—
I imitate you.

I woke up thinking abouy my brothr’s body.
That q That was my first bit of early morning typing
So the first dignity, it turns out, is to get the spelling right.

When I sat in the square in Cuernavaca
Outside the church of the conquistador,
Wondering if Malinche had ever loved Cortés

The freeway tracks the Han River which flows
west out of the mountains we are heading toward.
This morning it is river-colored, grey-green,

A dune begins with an obstacle—a stone, a shrub, a log,
anything heavy enough to resist being moved by wind.