The Accidental German, and: Glucose Self-Monitoring, and: Sombreros

The Accidental German

Now she shakes
lots of hands, drinks coffee
from matching cups and saucers
recites the Lord's Prayer
in German
measures in centimeters
and grams. She listens to questions
about her former home:
Why are there so many guns?
So many hamburgers?
She refuses to scrub her windows
and front steps
until they're clean enough
to lick (a sin).
She lights candles at every meal,
says good morning,
good evening, good day.
Why are there so many fat people?
So many skyscrapers?
She boards the train each morning
with her crumbling briefcase,
watches the Rhine
muscle its way through the vineyards,
gets sentimental
for Methodist Churches, rodeo queens
and motel ice machines.
Why are Americans so shallow?
So friendly?
The Accidental German
watches church spires
of her current horizon
needle their way into the fog.
She's a breathing souvenir here,
someone's piece
of American apple pie
brought back to the Fatherland
for flavoring.
Back to the Fatherland
for spice.

Glucose Self-Monitoring

A stabbing in miniature, it is,
a tiny crime,
my own blood parceled
drop by drop and set
on the flickering tongue
of this machine.

It is the spout-punching of trees
for syrup new and smooth
and sweeter
than nature ever intended.
It is Sleeping Beauty's curse
and fascination.
It is the dipstick measuring of oil
from the Buick's throat,
the necessary maintenance.

It is every vampire movie ever made.

Hand, my martyr without lips,
my quiet cow.
I'll milk your fingertips
for all they're worth.
For what they're worth.

Something like a harvest, it is,
a tiny crime.

Sombreros

So it's Ecuador this time.
On its back the post card disappears
behind your tiny eggs of fountain ink.
After seven years you still
misspell my name.
The address, though, is correct.
It is this side,
this paragraph of your voice I slap
against the cool gold
of the freezer compartment.
Magnet-trapped you are, suspended.
I leave you talking
into the humming coils,
the freon bloodstream
the cell where ice cubes, popsicles,
chopped broccoli
and breakfast sausage sleep
against their shaggy wall of frost.

And the other side - the front?
That's what I'd rather see.
It looks out at me
from between the whirlpool symbol
and aerobics schedule.
It's a lovely Leo Matiz photo: black,
white, and woolly grays.
There is a woman surrounded
by gleaming sombreros
laid across the earth in rows
like sun-bleached tea cups
with saucer-brims.
In a Disney movie they would pop up,
chink-chink together and sing.
They would walk, with brilliant noodle legs
and cartoon ponchos.
They would walk away
from the woman who wove them
and brought them
to the raked dirt stall.
They would walk away, swaying,
up the sun-scarred road to Quito.