The Road to the Jungle

The road through El Remate never went straight,
but the thought of moving

was slender and vulnerable, curling toward,
then away from us. All day,

the road conversed with the lake,
and the weather beat down on its tired face.

Sun clawed as if in a trance.
Around noon, we decided to walk into town

to the carts and the awnings we hoped
would be there. We spoke of distance,

then nothing, then processions of monkeys,
and other gradual musings. We ate in the drape

and sway of small hollow breezes,
with only slight talk —

asking for ice and again ice, which spiraled
around in our desperate bodies. On the way back,

the road moved more slowly,
the land blunt in the dangerous heat.

At the inn, a young man held out
large glasses of sharp sweet lemonade – glistening,

cold. We offered perspiring Spanish
with fitful verbs. A fan sent its quizzical smile

in circles. Around us,
the yellow birds and gardenia,

and down a long row of stairs, the lake
and its gentle frustrations. The heat kept to its welling

until long past nightfall,
until we felt haunted, inhabited, omniscient.