The Abandoned Farmhouse

Where are you today, Isabelle?

Not on the impoverished porch.

Broken panes and the unlatched

are irresistible,

but you are not found

in the swallows’ roosts

that hang from the front room ceiling,

not in the paper wasps’ nest

teetering high overhead

among horse hair and exposed plaster,

piles of faded pink insulation

that lay like small mountains,

nor in small traps found near your deserted bed

that might have captured others.

Ensnared by many things

your pain is nowhere near the emptied pharmaceuticals.

The hanging woven coat

among your other garments

the ones whose skirts fanned out in some former time

I imagine your slight waist,

and then your husband’s calloused hands there.

Did you, farm woman, learn the dance?

The present digs into each of your pockets

to find any small remnants

written in your hand, Isabelle—

grocery lists,

a few receipts,

directions perhaps, 

anything to show where you were going. 

                        Consuela

We learn by going where we have to go.—Theodore Roethke

I’m glad I asked for the middle seat,

elbows kiss on the armrest.

Consuela is going south,

back to Costa Rica.

Back to her Mama and five siblings.

She’s traveled Toyko and India

bright pink and diamond bracelets

are memories of eight stories of golden bangles—

rubbing shoulders with stench.

I ask if our conversation is interrupting

Mother Teresa’s “What is Love?”

“No, I want to be seen reading like all Americans.”

Her unbroken English belies her study for this moment.

Who would know this secret shared?

Ever so often she asks me for a word.

Consuela yearns for the right word.

For her, there is a yearning.

I say I am jealous of her being bilingual.

Still, we speak the common language.

"Where I am going there is no army,"

skin ripening with pride

as she speaks of her Caribbean gem.

Shaded face, tropical eyes,

rising bosom, bowl of fruit

under her multicolored peasant top,

chubby arms animated.

She doesn’t miss air-conditioning.

She returns to childhood,

barefoot, working in Papa’s little store,

raising her brothers, sisters.

“I have no children, sadly,

Mama managed then, when I was nine.”

“Papa helped his neighbors

as long as he lived.

Before his death,

he wiped the books clean:”

There is no debt in heaven.

Mama still hands out water,

juices for cranky children

after miles on dusty roads.

Consuela sends two hundred dollars each month.

“What is that?” she says.

America’s jet has landed:

 “My American husband is so loquacious,” she ends.

“But I am shy and will only speak when asked.”   

                                Iris

After the elegant dinner’s second seating

between the entrée and dessert,

Iris cleans my glasses,

gives me different eyes.

Do I know the difference between

Scratch-proof and resistant?

No matter,

everything wears down at last.

“These are progressives,”

She breathes and wipes, breathes and wipes.

Iris speaks of her homeland

how like a game of chance

to get in and out—

her mother left the island before Fidel.

We joke casually, the US

isn’t speaking to Cuba.

No problem here.

Her lover has sent the lobster back;

poor people’s food in La Habana.

On the balcony later,

Iris looks out over the open sea,

her beaded black and white gown reflecting light;

under a near perfect moon,

it is so calm.

“I look out every night,” she intimates,

“knowing for sure there is a make-shift raft,

praying it will make America’s shore.”

         Sapphire Turns To Robin's Egg

Sapphire turns to Robin’s egg

Silver slivers skip—

Caribbean dragonflies.

                           Piering

The moon above Cozemel

hangs high and whole,

the man, his mouth, an “O,”

singing Caribbean songs.

The moon is mother-of-pearl

and won’t be bartered over with silver

in the market place,

She is a priceless sliver of paradise

dancing on a dusky deck.   

Abandoned Farmhouse was written after

discovering the artifacts of a woman's life who

had left them for my finding.

                2009, Chambersburg, PA

               Writing Retreat with Friends

Consuela, Iris, Sapphire Turns to Robin's Egg

and Piering were written while on cruise in the

Caribbean.

            2008, Miama, Florida; Cozemel,

     Mexico; Grand Caymon Island; Jamaica