Jarocho Blues

You came with long luxurious hair,

black as the deep tint of heart-blood,

almost blue.

You came with a smile and a guitar,

groping for a song:

Una nueva cancion.

Exitos de Augustin Lara.

Jarocho blues.

You came with a tequila bottle

and sat crossed-legged on a rug of colors.

I watched and you sang,

the lit air carried a litany

of women’s stories.

Your voice a silk veil

over dripping candles,

bringing back family songs

over copas de vino.

Your voice and the night of day.

A mahogany wood table held an overturned glass.

You sat next to it and stretched the chords

over my eyes, strummed the strings

into infinity.

You sang and I fell into a notated dream

with a chorus of psalms drenched in sorrows.

You sang and the bougainvillea of youth

came to me in torrents. You sang

and tears cut a path down the wall,

blanketing me in a spell of ointments.

You sang and the tequila burned

the edges of my mouth.

I never wanted it to end, your singing.

A guitar across your lap. Your eyes closed.

Waves of hair over your shoulders

and strands stuck to sweat across your face.

You sang and I died. Dead for all the broken men.

Dead for all who ever stopped believing.

Dead for all who ever thought women

were less than the tint of this blood,

less than the warmth of our birth waters,

less than our deepest cry.

Dead for all who ever hungered to be touched

by the flesh of such a voice.