MOON CURSE

Alexis. There he stands in the shade outside my little blue house, stopped in his tracks on the way to the gallera, fighting cock in the crook of his arm, weight shifted in a sexy pose and smiling in a way that he thinks- or maybe he knows- turns women on. I have been walking for an hour, pear in hand, in search of the very same muchacho, whose rooster's de-feathered legs now shake spasmotically in the air, spurs cut off. "Tu gallo está temblando" I remark as I present him with the pear. As I walk away I know I have it bad.


Angel fell from the sky. Young, cherubic, positive-energied, interested, paper-thin, tender, caring, baby, baby, baby, Angel. Cheek to cheek we sit on the acera outside Guila's house, heads bowed. A neighbor thinks we are falling asleep, but perhaps Guila knows that in fact someone is biting someone's tongue.


I sit on the foundation outside Colombina's house facing the street, twisting guano into a long soga. People stop by to sit next to me or to straddle their motorcycles and make comments. Franklin asks if I am making the soga to hang myself and as I laugh I catch sight of Alexis leaning on Keisi's gate, watching me. I don't take my eyes off of him, but somehow my fingers remember how to twist the dry leaves into cordage as my mind remembers finding the lips on that magnetic face in the dark of a rainy night not so long ago, not so long after I remember him saying jaque mate over the town's one chess set. But now I don't say a word.


Angel climbs a tree to take down a grapefruit. We are up in the mountains approaching where the water springs from the earth for the town below. He finds me various little red fruits and I trust that they are edible. Jumping over rocks we reach a waterfall where we stop to splash. And kiss. And tell.


Alexis tells me to tell Angel not to give me telling marks on my neck. He says that he has the right to be beautifully angry but is not. He is finally being honest with me. And I with myself. And with Angel always.




BACHATA

Bachata takes me home. Seamless bachata bus rides. One bachatero after another with the same guiro and the same guitar and the same drums. Bachata at weddings after Mendelssohn and here comes the bride and opp! there she goes to bachata with her father on the patio. Bachata at the gallera, sweet smooth rolling bachata in the background of so much avian violence. Bachata beats go on long after dozens of fierce chicken hearts cease. Bachata at the fiestas patronales, bachata in the streets, bachata between merengues blaring out of colmados. Bachata with my eyes closed stepping in time to a changing string of men back and forth accross a dance floor. Even on my mountainside 8km away from the nearest electricity, bachata lives in radios feeding off car batteries. Bachata takes me home-- and takes off its shoes and socks and moves in with me.