in bed with a migraine  

been too social again

Esteban’s band is blaring

outside Bungalow Las Hamacas 

belts out “Wish You Were Here”

my sentiment exactly

i go downstairs at five am

to see the sunrise

discover i’m locked in at night 

no one can get in or out

the man asleep in our lobby’s our protection

i break out at eight am   three swimmers 

two front crawl   one breast stroke

by nine   a whole string of swimmers 

back & forth across the bay 

makes me wish i lived here

two fishermen stand at the ocean’s edge

one rolls the line in   the other patiently awaits a nibble 

i turn my back to the sun 

two pigeons & a grackle pick about the sand 

spout a similar song 

picka picka picka picka picka picka picka

& always the ululation of waves 

like an old friend’s greeting

a man limps sits towards me 

when there are all these empty tables

i whisper “damn”

he groans as if sitting down is effortful   it must have been

& now   a woman with a book    smokes  

i see their shadows move behind me 

they have not said anything 

like the act could be sacred 

choosing writing    

to be alone 

and now more hatted Americans 

(or perhaps Canadians) 

laugh down the ramp 

hold fast to railings 

sandals in hand

i can hear their chatter already 

so quick to judge 

he places his hand on her shoulder    

guides her forward 

i think of my mother & father 

how they have changed so suddenly 

they seem to have not responded to their vaccines kindly

they are eighty-seven & eighty-eight

but to have deteriorated that quickly doesn’t make sense

i spoke to dad yesterday

his speech has changed

perhaps you have been on this journey

that of saying goodbye to one’s beloved parents

& the photos of late   dad’s leans on his cane 

looks so like Grammo

here birds call to one another   say “Si” like a Latino 

& I hear little Spanish sentences in my mind 

“Donde vas?”   “Hijole”

yesterday i sat on a bus going from Barra de Navidad

(so many references to Christ’s birth) to Melaque 

a wee Mexican woman sat beside me 

she was sixty-eight   three years older than me 

she looked ten or twenty years older 

these people work so hard 

she told me her grandson was murdered last September 

with her right hand   she indicates his head was chopped off

on my ride to the Manzanillo airport

a garbage dumps gleams white on a hill

Salvatore my taxi driver who works six & a half days a week

says the dead are buried there   on the side

he makes that gesture of a head being chopped off

Melaque is protected by the cartels

“Keep the foreign money coming in”

i hear the cartel helps fund the schools

though i inhale smoke   i keep my thoughts to myself

yesterday we ate breakfast at Las Gaviotas restaurant &

several foreigners complained about the food

i keep my thoughts to myself

we shazam past Huatulco  

here motorcycles drive on the road’s edge

& if a driver is going slowly   

he moves to the side of the road   

lets the fast drivers fly by

pass semi trucks full of coconuts & coconut husks 

fields of red bananas

watermelon

avocado

tomatoes 

i wanna be a normal person eating peanuts

watch a film on the plane

not look out the window for inspiration

like my father   head in the clouds

when the couple moved 

sensing my distaste for smoke

i thought   i no longer want to be alone

i think of all the time you spent rerouting my flight today

from Manzanillo to Dallas 

Los Angelos to Phoenix 

wonder if my city girl might choose the simpler slower life

like so many ex-pats 

& i hear Esteban singing again

“Wish You Were Here”

the garbage dump / burial site

Puerto Valljarta