CHARLES RIES
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RED HEAD
I have a girl friend, she’s 40 years older than me.
We say it’s unfair to have met when age and polio
have left her youthfulness behind. When I am with
her, being is like breathing and long silences are as
productive as two hour conversations. Love often
finds us this way -
Right person, wrong place
Wrong time, right person
Right woman, near death
She told me that when I am 75, I’ll realize how everything
only gets worse. When the ones you love die, new ones no
longer take their place. But I tell her she’s wrong.
Life dealt us its cruel card. We won’t be jumping into
flaming beds with the passion of young bodies. Rather,
I will roll her wheel chair or lift her off the ground when
she topples over. I will be happy to hold her in my heart
as a perfect moment when love blew through the right
window at the wrong time.
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LOS HUESOS
(the bones)
I sit with the dead tonight. I have
brought my father’s tobacco and
my grandfather’s beer. Between
their tombstones, I light a sparkler
and (with eyes open) imagine them
standing and dancing before me.
So I get up and dance with them,
turning, spinning, and falling to the
ground.
As I catch my breath, I look
up to see their smiles shine down
like porcelain stars. They point at me
"There’s our boy, he’s come to
drink and smoke with us. He loves
the lost ones with a heart as big as
heaven and inhales our graves as if
they were fields of red roses."
The beer widens my eyes, makes
the deep night opaque. Revealing
a tribe of dead lovers who protect
us from devils and demons, insuring
our first communions and last rites,
ready to welcome us back home
with cold soft hands.
The graveyard is full. The living
and their dearly departed sit in tight
family circles telling old stories that
recall ancestors whose names have
now been given to babies.
We pass funeral cards, rosaries, and
wedding rings among us - tiny monuments
to people whose portraits hang along the
stairs leading to the cellar where we make
our candles, crush hot peppers, and shed
our tears.
We slice lemon cake, eat chicken breasts,
and drink tequila in the Cemeterio de Santa
Rosa. The ghosts are all brown, except mine.
Pale faces who’ve passed over - German,
pot bellied, serious white people, who,
in life, had things to accomplish.
We sing and dance to all the dead gone.
Mock death and remember a cast of bit
players who slip into our dreams with
whispers just before dawn.
As I pour my tequila into the earth I see
their spirit mouths open and skeletons
rise to dance three feet above the ground.
White vapor swirling like clouds. Sweet
misty blankets that embrace the tombs
of my family.
--------
BIRCH STREET
Sitting on the porch outside my walk up with Elaine
watching the Friday night action on Birch Street.
Southside’s so humid the air weeps.
Me and Elaine are weeping too.
Silent tears of solidarity.
She’s so full of prozac she can’t sleep and
I’m so drunk I can’t think straight.
Her depression and my beer free our tears
from the jail we carry in our hearts.
Neighbors and strangers pass by in the water vapor.
Walking in twos and fours. Driving by in souped up
cars and wrecks. Skinny, greased up gang bangers
with pants so big they sweep the street and girl friends
in dresses so tight they burn my eyes.
I can smell Miguel’s Taco Stand. Hear the cool
Mexican music he plays. Sometimes I wish Elaine
were Mexican. Hot, sweet and the ruler of my passion,
but she’s from North Dakota, a silent state where
you drink to feel and dance and cry.
Sailing, drifting down Birch street. Misty boats,
street shufflers and senioritas. Off to their somewhere.
I contemplate how empty my can of beer is and
how long can I live with a woman who cries all day.
Mondays are better. I sober up and lay lines for the
Gas Company. Good clean work. Work that gives me
time to think about moving to that little town in central
Mexico I visited twenty years ago before Birch Street,
Elaine and three kids nailed my ass to this porch.
--------
THE LAST TIME
I was thinking about the last time
I was in love. When I realized she
was thinking the same things at the
same time as I was. The constant
erection, forgetfulness and tears.
Everywhere was a bed. Everyday our
hearts bled into buckets big enough
to wet the thirst of 1,000 red roses.
Do you suppose love - true love - parts
the curtain and allows angels and night visitors
to circle this light? A light that smells like cinnamon
and sounds like children’s whispers.
We had only to breathe the same air to believe it.
Seven months later she returned to her husband and
the sad chains. Love hasn’t shown up since, except
when I find her in the features of people I see.
This nose, those eyes, that chin. They remind me of
the last time I was in love.
m.a.g.
