the mysterious visitor


he arrived in the springtime
the mysterious visitor
and no one knew for how long
he would stay

even I couldn't say;
he was the mysterious visitor

to me he was a diablero
skulking in the night
head bowed, itching to run

spectral dog
with the eyes of a coyote
smile of a wolf and
the translucent incorporeal body
of a spirit in the dark

Gemini master
of an enamored Leo lover
the mysterious visitor
would sink into moments of
impenetrable narcotic fog

he once sang a song
and it sounded to me
as if he were singing
his own lullaby

(diableros run wild and free
they do not know family)

I always saw him as an orphan boy
until it became apparent
that he was a loved boy and not
a lost one at all

I think he preferred
to be the mysterious visitor

coming and going
appearing and dissolving
back into the panorama

canines glinting
in a smile
of satisfaction
as he slinks away



3/29/09. The First Day of Spring


you are sleeping on the couch
and I am watching your stomach rise
up and down

i like the way your feet are curled
your hands rest one atop the other
over your ribs

and your socks are mismatched

it makes it so easy to see the child in you
i had begun to think no such child existed
in you or in me or in anyone else

but now i see that i was wrong
in your sleeping face
the curl of your eyelashes,
so blond as to catch the light

your freckles form a wonderful topography
so many places I'd like to go--

to the child's place I thought I could no longer see

It feels like the first day of spring