Sunday, November 18, 2012

Poetics: I remember Nogales


I remember Nogales,
just over the border a world
away we romped in our shorts
and college awe on the gritty
streets and in tiny shops where
smoke mingled with smoke,
where old cars and metal shacks
were a rusty orange-brown
and our painted toenails
were dusty from the road.

I remember Nogales,
with shelves of worms
in tequila bottles drowned
and sunk to the bottom –
and that woman passed out cold
in the heat of the dying day,
sitting drunk against a rusty
car with her dusty child
fidgeting by her side.



  

Written for Poetics — photography by Terry S. Amstutz — at dVerse Poets hosted this week by Claudia Schoenfeld, who shared with us the photography of Terry S. Amstutz, a.k.a. mobius faith. I selected his image above as the prompt for my poem.

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8 comments:

Brian Miller said...

ugh...that last visual is one that would be scarred forever on the memory..the woman and her child...i have a few of those scenes stuck in mine surely....

Claudia said...

fantastic write with the dust, worms in tequila bottles, you captured the heat and the atmosphere so well...took me right there...sad about that drunk woman with her dusty child...gave a sting in my heart..

izzy said...

Ooooh yah me too- the dust, colors and probably tequila! I have a very dim memory of an afternoon/eve! Poor children... Thanks for a more vivid scene than I care for!

Scarlet said...

This was quite a romp with the smoke, dusty road and heat of the dying day. I specially like the ending of the second stanza, a tragic/sad scene ~

Rosaria Williams said...

Ah, youth on a holiday, booze and fun and hot nights against the reality scorched in people who actually live there!

Fireblossom said...

Wow, what a closing image.

kj said...

you are a painter, lydia. plain and simple

love
kj

mythopolis said...

I was reminded of Dylan's 'When you're lost in the rain in Juarez..."

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