A Quiet Life
The simple elegance of it.
Does Robert Hass live it?
I think not but could be wrong.
His black and white eyes
on the back of the book
reflect twin Chinese junks
drifting into golden ripples
at sunset. I was to have met
him once but didn’t. Instead
I stayed in the old monastery
where he would have stayed,
perhaps in the very room.
The grotesque Purépechan masks
glared from the white of patio walls.
Esperanza had silver moon steps,
flat despair on her stitched-together
face, a soft voice to tell
of the accident, deft hands.
She could not read the note I left her.
Her fresh spinach soup was
of the world’s greenest green.
Today the brittle interlace
of the old elm’s branches
barely stirs against cloudless blue.
The refrigerator is old, too, and hums.