ine
and chant the litany
(wise aboriginals never forgive, you know)
and a good poundmaker is so adept
at keeping score.

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Page 28
NIGHT SKY

I can call a lake a kettle
a splendid, ivory comb a snare --
tiny feet cataclysms off a mountain.
the night sky my ariel home.

Nothing matters with my heart at my ribs
a collarbone of doubt
inching into my anatomy
Everest-wide.
surging canals into my throat.

I am a pianist plying my trade
playing to waves --
the wharf and pier
passionate onlookers
entranced with joy.
sailors wearing blond caps
in stout approval
their tall ships wavy as decorative pins.
smashed bottles accumulated days at sea
lapping the dock.

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Page 29
THE WORLD OF TEZCATLIPOCA*
"...the fourth state of water in its plasmic state ...
elements as plasmic water have programmed goals which
they follow like earth encompassing genies.

In soft light
amid hues
of barbaric green.
walled edges of
the cenote's fortress
shine as eyes of the Cyclops,
bloodlshot and ringed
with nettled stone

A break in the clearing --
then ramshackle growth
broken with vengeance
of uprooted vine
confronts the eyes of a jaguar*
(axe-breadth apart)
between canopies of trees
millenial rot,
algae and monkeys
carved in
a jungle setting
the shape of an iguana's room

* the same

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Page30
IN THE CENOTE

Under a candlelit operetta
of stars,
the vertigo horizon trails
to a shudder
until,
swallows the size of kites
handstand in flying motion
about pools of water
then glide within reach of the cenote,*
cisterns deep
and flagellant
scars in earth
that cradle still hands
of pale, pumice stone.

All the tears
of old Mexico
refurbish this soil,
anxious in blessing
a brittle toil
in sisal* groves
harvesting hennequin*
to symbolize pity
in flat expanse
of Mission stone.

* A deep natural well. The term is of Mayan origin.
* Hemp.

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Page 31
BELIZE

Giving myself permission to write --
points from Ciudad Juarez
as well as the compass where
taboos complete bayonet-sized memories
a tadpole of doubt gleaned from
shallow Canadian upbringing
sojourning in the South.

A stranger came --
his beard the Columbian hillcountry
mustachioed, the voice trailed off
whisper-thin, steeper than riverine jungles,
the Black Mamba or boomslang b