Poem

Lovers and Aliens in Tijuana

“…for charity after all is only a word.”
-- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

1.

The full moon was there above the Coyote
Mountains and asked, “What have you got to say
for yourself?” Celina was there
and her friend Brad but I was the one
who loved her: that was what I had
to say for myself.

2.

Con la luna solamente para luz,
we had to feel our way along
the concrete building, the walkway into Mexico.
Halfway across, footsteps thundered
all around us in the dark;
there was nothing to hold on to.
Out in the border fields the moonlight glistened
off the water in the gullies and trenches.
I thought of postcards received from friends
from their faraway places: Venice and gondolas,
the Seine river and Paris park benches,
and an Alaskan lake surrounded by mountains,
waterfalls and streams where you could only
enter by plane or bird.

The sound of footsteps passed into nowhere.

3.

In town we walked past a line of taxi drivers
who would take us anywhere
for a dollar, rows of lawn statues for sale,
and inexpensive leather shops.
Campesinos, their heads bowed,
milled the alleys and streets
with their eyes fixed on us –
us gringos.

I stopped at a strip joint.
Celina shook her head and grabbed his arm,
yet I was the one who loved her.
The moon’s reflection blotted out the head
of a naked, Rubenesque woman on a poster.
I thought of all my distant loves:
my sixth grade teacher, Ingrid Berman,
and the picture of a pretty woman’s face
in a wallet I bought for my Father
when I was nine.

4.

In Rosalita’s bar there was only a bartender.
In the corner a TV showed
American football.
Celina and he sat together, kissed,
held hands and whispered things
I could not understand.
But I was the one who loved her,
a abrazar y besar la luna.
The salt on the rim of my Margarita glass
stung my chapped lips. I watched the game
and wondered if the moon would be out
to guide the way home.

5.

A little girl with a dirt smeared face and ragged
flowers in her hands approached our table.
“Cuanto para las flores?,” I asked the girl.
Celina said, “No, you’ll have every kid in Tijuana
in here trying to sell us something.”

But I was the one who loved her.

I looked at the girl – the thin dress, the bare feet,
the brown eyes – I reached for my money.
Celina said, “Ah, go ahead, you know everything.”
But I didn’t. I didn’t know anything at all.

6.

When we left
the moon was behind the clouds.
Y el cielo negro observo nuestro viaje.

7.

Walking back into America
through that cavernous border building
the world separated for me

into those who could love, be loved,
and those unloved:
the two people feeling their way along ahead of me,
the little flower girl, all little flower girls,
and every alien running past me in the dark
bound for some new beginning –
it was all an attempt –

and I, quemada por la luna.
I, alone, but not alone,
who loved only that
which I could not possess,
let the woman ahead of me
go.