Swat

The why
Doesn’t matter
She says in wall words.

As if the rage
Erupts unprovoked,
Athena from the head of Zeus.

Lightning bolts,
Machetes, AK-47s,
Trapped animals could use these.

---

by Robin Wyatt Dunn, with Perchance                                        

Curvas Peligrosas

Dangerous curves,
Dry arroyos,
Acoustic tunes sharp.
Lotus, hanging birdsnests,
Buzzards. The need to piss,
Hammocks, homes falling down
Homes half-built: blocks, steel,
Rusty rebar.
Five pesos to pee.
Fifteen for Freez tea.
Kids home from school for lunch.
Trim hands patting packs
Of tortillas and then
The boy smiles
And joy lifts to reach across the sea
Where a child now grown
Carries a child you never thought
Would come.
Swing around the dangerous curve:
A slice of rocky beach, a rolling coast
Where the mountains meet the sea,
Murmuring in earthquakes,
Chanting songs in streams,
Like emeralds, like jade.
Your pelvic squeeze
At each dangerous curve;
Even the bridge, a curve!
A slice of fruit, a smile.
A cactus’s gold blooms,
Diamond glass shattered on
Dangerous dry curves.
Phone with no signal.
Intersection? No signal.
Turns, no signal.
We might get lost, but not
On the dangerous curves
Where we could suddenly be lost.
But isn’t that the way?
The way can be lost, found,
Wet, wrung out, dried in the sun
Left fluttering on a cactus
Where a yellow bird lands.

---

by Robin Wyatt Dunn, with Perchance                             

Peri Dwyer Worrell grew up white on a Puerto Rican street in New York. After thirty years as a physician in north Florida, she became disabled and expatriated to Latin America.