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Naufrago

Paul Smith

Náufrago

What gets burned, anyway?
What gets burned and lives?
The chile peppers laid out to dry
In the sun
Our tongues when we eat them
Our skin
Camouflaged by fashion
Till we molt
Strip off civilization
And bake outside
And marvel at the
Heating element above
Not too close
Not too far
Just right to cook us
Till we are like the jungles
The camel crossing the Empty Quarter
The nomad’s tent
Near the massif
The beach at Dakar
The young aviator crossed
Before being gobbled up by
The wind, the sand, the stars
And not feel sorry
For his flesh
Or ours
Imperishable
As plantains
With seeds
Scattered from Guinea
To the Falklands
A bumper crop of
Sunbathers undressing
To look like us

***

Drought

Enormous hands
A journeyman’s hands
Thick-fingered, stubby
With round crescent nails
Crusty
Calloused
Like the skin of a hippo
The skin of a hippo or rhino
On the veldt
In an empty river
Palms wrinkled
Keratosis-colored
Intersecting lines telling
Contradictory stories
But cupped
Shaking
As a small pool of water in them
Drips through
Not even these humongous
Crusty, cupped ladles
Can hold moisture
As they are raised to the mouth
It spills into the dryness below
Hippos grunt
Rhinos bellow
Wildebeests die
Multitudes starve
The enormous hands
Become fists

***

 

Papelóte

To build a kite
Take the barillas from a palm tree
Fasten them with string
So they make an X
Do this twice
So you use four barillas
And you have a frame
Shaped like an eight-pointed star
Cover with papel de China
In different colors
Glue the paper to the star-shaped
Frame
From the middle of the star
Attach a string that goes down
This is where you hang on
On the two sides
Tie two long papelillos
So they form tails
Which make it go up
Go to the beach
Where there are no trees at all
Let the wind and the tails take
The kite up
Over the sea
High as it will go
Watch it soar
Eventually the string will break
Because it is cheap
You don’t even have to let go
It does that all by itself
Staring at it disappear
In the sky
Will make you see spots
Star-shaped eight-sided spots
That turn black when you blink
And then disappear
Like the kite did

 

 

 

Header photo: Carlos ZGZ, "Desert Tent" 

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About Paul Smith

Paul Smith has travelled far and wide as a construction engineer/superintendent and has met many memorable people. He likes where the human world meets the natural world and how the two interact. One of the favorite places he has worked is Honduras, where he met his wife Flavia. His poem Papelote is inspired by the north coast of Honduras, its bright sun, and the catrachos that live there.

Filed Under: Poetry

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