Born under the stars mapping the journey of Taurus across the sky with the captured Princess Europa, I have always felt connected with the place where I was born, specifically the farms where my people worked and planted and harvested for generations. I feel the weight of those lands passing out of our hands, but will always remember climbing those hills and working that soil under the guidance of grandparents, aunts, and uncles, eating the fruits of that labor in the form of new potatoes and sour pickles canned in miscellaneous reused glass jars. I am sad that my son never caught tadpoles in the creek to bring to my grandmother as my cousin’s children were able to do

Muck giving under
Foot, hands clutching jarred tadpoles
Released when we left.

There are murals in
California.  Exhaust stained,
gang-signed walls treated
with soap and thinner, creating
something new inside the
negative space.  As he is
telling me this, a design
grows out of his
thumbnail, the paint
from the chalkboard
table giving way to cheap
polyurethane.  Satisfied,
he rises, exits the coffee shop,
and finds another mess
to make sense of.

born, hatched, sprouted

form came to be

nurished, fed, watered

growth

live long, live strong

maybe

weakened, plump, weeds

old age, slaughtered, choked

death.

It’s the harp players’
job to restrain.
to remain calm
and ready,
to clutch loosely
in your palm
the tiny black
bullet microphone
with the volume knob set,
good to go,

when?

you’ll never know
and better so
also to hold,
in proper key,
that ten hole
brass reed bomb,

otherwise called the
pig whistle, the mouth organ,
the diatonic gob iron, the bone,
the French harp, the horn,
the blues harp, the tin sandwich,
the panpipe, the harpoon,
the common man’s instrument,
the harmonica,

with its twenty thin tin slivers,
affixed long to short,
soldered onto solid plates,
pinned to a pear wood comb
with hollow chambers cut
that echo every moan,
encased with silver covers
which glisten under stage light,
low notes left, high notes right

on the twelfth bar turn
around, the lead guitarist
gives a nod,
it’s your time tonight

remember always
to stay low,
syncopate the bass line,
listen, listen
to the snare,
start slow,
keep a cadence
funky cool, cast a line
then reel and flow,
lay bare your soul
until the hook is in,

and then,

when all that
sorrow and that pain
can no longer be contained,
once per show,

let it explode.

Now that the sobbing
Has subsided,
I wonder who I am,
Now that I am not
Who I was before.

hungry prelingual humans,
pointing toward the prey

soldiers,
signaling orders

the traffic cop,
directing vehicles

deaf friends,
signing each other

an angry parent or boss,
acting out

a raised arm,
to show your buddies where you are in the crowd

the high five,
awaiting completion

the lecturer,
trying to enhance their speech

the raised fist,
seeking blood and bone

the loved ones at the end of that bright tunnel,
calling you home

This is my favorite part of the day
the morning, after my coffee,
as the day begins, shiny and new
Before my to do list starts demanding
and the hard things interfere,
there is so much promise

The promise can get crowded out
with the busyness and weary cirucumstances
but each day presents a chance
to get things accomplished, connect
with people, and most importantly
show kindness to others

As I put on my armor to face the
difficult part of my day,
I choose to do so with gladness,
and embrace the hope that 
exsists within the mire 
of life’s unpleasant aspects

I bolt awake, early a.m., my wife, too —
something unseeable in the night
has beaten us with a whisk,
left us in a froth,
left us like a lawn over which
men in green shirts rolled spiked wheels,
sprinkled poison to kill the weeds,
left a sign, and quietly drove away.  

lost, but not lost as long as my memory holds it to its chest, the way I held you so often but never enough, from the beginning while dancing at that party, to the end while I waited for the sirens to come closer, to stop. I swear it was taken from almost the same spot as this one, only on a foggy evening when the birds were resting and the boats’ lights moved slowly on the river below, below the two of us, which is the real difference for me, us walking out of the picture and into the future, what there was of it, me in a suit, hat on my head. And you, yes, clearly beautiful beside me in the mist and night, a car-coat, a calf-length dress that the coat largely hid, making me picture your breasts, the space you shared with me further below, making me picture you holding me close the way you did so often but never enough, certainly never too much.

(after the 2021 photograph, “Porto, Foggy Days IV,” by Nuno Pestana Vasconcelos)