DON NICOLÁS

Ay, no, not again, ay no,

    look, mira, he’s done it again

    Poet, how could you?

    look what you’ve done

just imagine

    the risk

just imagine

    what she is capable of doing to your body

    your mind and your soul

just imagine the heart or the non-heart

    of my own mother

    a sad, dancing puppet-woman

think what she will do

    when she sees how your thumbnail

    has carved shapes that look

    like whole letters, whole words

    into the succulent skin

    of this geranium leaf

    releasing

    the fragrance

    of verse