There is sadness in the snap of the maid’s navy smock I have arrived too late. La mesa ya está puesta, the sideboard set all thoughtful with flowers—your sick bed now vacant and unwound. Groups of waiting stems struggle to keep their musky summer blooms—auras azules en órbita and limes are left wanting to be sliced into cups whose handles are turned A las diez A las dos A dios—arms Your useless legs ya no pueden bailar yet the soul still creeps. I can see it clustered with butterflies Mariposas borrachas are silvering the soil of dogs—they are browsing the blood- red terracotta tile You are ready to greet the sun por ventanas abiertas que cuadran la luz breathe into the harmonic bobble of bees on the vine—to reach for blooming stalks beyond the eve Más allá Más allá Let us leave this insect churn—the mourning that is beating like living gold leaf blessing the windfall fruits where they lay in the road ripe with worms
Note: This poem is read by editor Caridad Moro-Gronlier.
Kathryn Moll is an architect and California native. Her text-based drawings—collaborative works created under the name modem—have been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the Cooper Union in New York City. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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