Once, a while ago, when the rhythm took me,
(sorry, sorry, sorry,
lo siento, mea culpa;
have you seen all the ways
we learn to apologize
for being alive?)
it was Los Lobos,
and it was Spring,
and I was in the kitchen,
and I was told to stop screwing off.
The next day, I drove past a graveyard.
Most days now,
I’m guilty of screwing off.
(especially where rhythm is concerned)
Lo siento.
Hanging on the narrowing wall,
a Sicilian panorama drifts in browns-
vines clamber up an adobe mission;
clay pots in plenty a sign of bounty.
A solitary woman in mute blue and red carries one of them
along the foreground.
There’s no one else in the scene,
since the men are inside watching the game.
I think if she doesn’t hurry,
the vines will crack the ground beneath her feet,
and ensconce her as well;
earthenware
lifted to God under the bronzing sun for eternity.
Litany_of_the_Lost 