South of the border among the pluripresence
of jellied heat, east of the setting sun, in
Nogales, Mexico, where this sort of thing can occur,
you glimpse, twenty-five meters off the shoulder
of the road, a Mexican lady, walking
alone: black-haired, slender, sun-soaked. Her
arms are bare and glow with toffee-colored skin,
the wet black eyes friendly yet almost mocking.
Not old but a little older,
she appears so suddenly through the acute
glare of windshield light, coming into your site
as something sprung up from an underground gate
and so unexpectedly there in the sharp light
that for an instant the world, like a top,
wobbles to a stop
and everything that’s ever happened to you
all at once, in a way you can’t articulate
and yet unquestionably true,
makes absolute
sense.