White Guy and Selena

A White Guy Hearing Selena’s “Siempre Hace Frio” for the First Time

Two souls, one car, roll on a dark South Texas night.

We ride in silence, my eyes on the road,

her face bathed in her iPhone’s soft, blue light.

“Why don’t you speak Spanish?” while still looking at her phone.

How could I explain that my clumsy tongue,

shattered the Spanish against the walls of my mouth,

and turned a babbling brook of a language,

into a dark muddy puddle?

How could I explain the words batted like butterflies

 against my ears, refusing to land?

“Hey, listen to this!” A tap on the screen

and a voice filled the car.

If voices had color, this voice would be a

dark amber. If voices had shapes, this voice would

look like a dark, wild honeycomb.

It was full of the emptiness of anguish and loss.

I understood every word, even though I didn’t

know any word. The voice told me all. Someone

was gone, someone was lonely, someone was sad.

The voice transcended the language of men. I needed

no translator, no guidebook to navigate this land.

It was all clear.

The singer was teaching me a new language-

the language of love and loss.

Shadow and fog

The fog, made luminous by
a one-headlight moon, thickens
around the pond. I can taste it
as I walk. The fogs wet kisses moisten
my cheeks, and her wet fingers
leave traces of drops on my jacket.
My moonshadow walks in front
of me, more tentative, less definite,
than his daytime brother. He is shy
like a coyote caught in the sudden
flash of a porchlight, cautious like a mouse
exploring a darkened kitchen.

Moonshadow, sunshadow,
we all have shadows in our lives.
They walk with us in the sunlight,
They walk with us in the moonlight.
The only choice we have is to let
our shadow walk before us,
or to walk so that it is behind us.