Ricardo Pau-Llosa: ‘Balcony’ and ‘Garden’

Balcony, Truman Street, Key West
POSH: Port Out, Starboard Home

Some prophet of triteness imagined luxury thus,
but soon the anagram became an adjective,
or a semanticized sound: a fluffy cushion’s lust
to shield us. Even asses must hover to live
ideally. On my Truman balcony I watch
Conchers pass, masked for plague although
alone on near empty streets. They march
or ride bikes, their gait patient and thorough
on the en-soi promenade. Shutters and quiet
have calmed their famous boister into pews.
Masks to hoard illness become blighted
ritual; cotton armor pretends a new
civility. Corona’s face crown gags a runner
angling for a stroke. Death is a task for the loner.

Behind him an 18-wheeler roars past,
black but for a stretch white space-shuttle—
“Spirit of America”—starboard, gleaming its last
dash home. Our millennia have been marked by struggles
with disease, and we never ceased to build and grow.
In the gothic shade of aqueducts we outspent
all the muses could give us from their grove,
epic lutes, philosophies in paint.
We hunted death and measured silent stars.
In marathons of falling youths, progress outran
the racers. No wound, no pox could leave its scars
on our ambition. The Truman Street strongman
resumes his pace, fists pummeling the air,
a victory masque, though no one else is there.

Ricardo Pau-Llosa

Garden

The squirrels come, thin but by the dozen,
when my old mango tree is weary with fruit.
How does one rage against the urge to survive,
yet behold bitten fruit across the rotten
ground? As in battle, ruin becomes surfeit,

and only death is at ease. Blessed
are the sudden fungi for they have forsaken
the comfort of seed. Blessed are the fire ants
for they are not one. Blessed the abandoned
nests, who paid their debt. Blessed are the epiphytes

for they homage prophesy. Blessed the weeds
for they prove the folly of lineage. Blessed are the grasses
for they burn first or last. Blessed the spiders
who unwind their handless clocks. Blessed the dead
leaves for they rot like memory. The dark prize

alarms all into song. One for the nearing
hunter, others to mate or teach, another
to demarcate, yet none reflect
the wonderer who neither masters nor
restores and left so as to speak these things.

Ricardo Pau-Llosa