Fugitive Connections

At night we cross the fifteen mile no-man's land
into Mexico: you're explaining to me
how to drive the lightless road, looking
at the rocky edge, not approaching headlights;
that there are vulcanizados who'll wake
if we need help with a tire. You wake me with
the pressure of your hand when passing a city,

and at sunrise we stop on the steep cobbled street
of Tobasco for fresh tunas, yellow
and red.I see a barefoot girl
in a velvet dress, and realize it's Sunday. You tell me
the word for wheat, trigo, just think
of trigonometry: I equate
your velocity with transience, as

the color blue is fugitive in a kiln
and can settle anywhere, as pale blue ink vanishes
when one tries to xerox it, and another poet
said to me, don't you know blue
is the language of love, it's transient? Your hand
flickers over my body gently in bed, as though
passing unmarked terrain: grazing my nipples
you murmur, they're hot, and press me hastily
to your chest.  In Guadalajara

the Perferico circles the city, and I float
on the periphery of your immense family
a few days.I go on along the coast
without you to name the immense black birds,
the silver cactus; but you're a continuous flicker
in my background like the quick fine line
of an unnamed road on a map.On the beach,
the edge of a wave like gold-green pressed glass
against the deepening blue force of the storm.

Inara Cedrins
From Fugitive Connections, published by the Virtual Artists Collective, 2006. Posted with permission, Inara Cedrins.