Room in my Mind
10:30 am
1
My latest alebrije
wags his tail and flicks
forked lightning
from the forge of his mouth.
His ancient mocking spirit
slowly emerges
from the trickster wood.
2
Made from scrap metal
by the man down the road
who recycles old scraps,
Don Quixote sits on the reinforced
toecap of a workman’s old boot.
Two spent sparking plugs
join to form his body.
His presence lectures me
on the ages of gold and silver
long since past.
“We exist,” he says,
“in an age of recycling.”
3
Shadows double
themselves in the mirror:
recycled lines of shade
carve the shower’s glass.
Wary of shade and flame
I stand in a dust-
laden beam of sunlight.
Motes in my mind:
flesh and blood chessmen
play their game,
dark squares and light.
4
My neighbour has six cats,
two children, and a tulipán tree.
I bought her youngest daughter
chocolate, and she showed me
how to play a simple game of cards.
But the pack was different
with the three
ranking above the queen and jack.
I throw away my threes and lose the game.
She laughs at me and calls me tonto.
She is ten.
5
Nochebuena,
single and double petals,
crimson and cream;
cempasúchiles,
flowers of the dead,
guide their footsteps
leading my lost ones back to me.
6
I think of milk bottles placed on a concrete step.
When I go out in the morning, sparrows have pecked
the silver tops to get at the cream.
Memories: once open doors
now slowly close.
Keys no longer turn in the locks.
Sleep gathers in forgotten rooms,
falling like dust on silken flowers.
My mind drifts in and out
between sun and clouds.
rogermoorepoet 