16
CIRQUE
Gretchen Diemer
Monarch Migration On the day of your death one thousand and eighteen migrating butterflies clustered outside a window facing south... I am on a beach in Mexico there are no butterflies, only waves and black rock a few fisherman throwing out their lines
Janet Levin
Farm Visitor, Romania
...they roosted for the night outlined by the frame of a window not mine or yours
[I ask] the Gypsy from Romania ”What do Gypsies believe?” The Gypsy looks away and doesn’t answer. The rain keeps falling... --Simon Ortiz
crossed the border flying to Ocampo or Angangueo east of Ciudad Hidalgo in the state of Michoacán. I am on a beach in Mexico, the shore too rocky and rough for swimmers. Brown pelicans fly over. A few fishermen pull in their lines, the sun shifts and drops into the sea.
I believe in rain, in the man soaked to the skin, staring at his crops, in the words he mutters: it’s raining all over Romania the wheat and fruit will rot, sooner or later we will all go hungry.
Someone with a flashlight hunts for crabs between the rocks a coati drinks the chlorinated water from the pool, stares when I rise to the surface. In a place of the fishermen, violence is not confined to the cities. Swimmers should use extreme caution. On the day of your death I reel in my line, dive into the waves dream there are no butterflies.
the gypsy looks away...
...and on the road cluttered with broken tools and old clothes, I call out to the hungry dogs dodging the donkey carts: gobble the meat scraps I toss to you and go on, your bellies still empty. Look this man in the eye. Tell him what you already know. The fruit molds on his trees. There is no good in the world.
The gypsy does not answer. He has seen this before. A handful of coins. A string of sausages. A woman crying in the wind.