Valentine's Day 2008

¿Como se dice eso?

(for Nadia)

¿Como se dice eso? How do I

say this? The hollow feel of the pillows

against the headboard as familiar as the green

of St. Ann, el calor del mar de Progreso, the cold

pews of Sacre Coeur, lost as the light

in these photographs, like the taste

of the small hairs under your navel?

¿Como se dice eso? How do I say

this? I will never go back

to those canefields that share

the mockingbird's trill with my grandfather’s

voice that has become one with the fog

rising over the fishing boats before the moon

covers herself behind mountains

as far away as your body from mine.

¿Como se dice eso? How do I say this?

That I have lied to you, lied to myself,

and I've learned this awful truth--

that heaven is everywhere,

For I have known these places:

the way the light gilds the altar of Sacre

Coeur, the way guava trees in St Ann hold

the morning dew on the backs of their leaves

the way dolphins at Progreso swam with us

into the ocean; the way I have loved your body.

***