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Poema de amor
- University of Arizona Press
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69 Poema de amor Spent the night in Mojave at the edge of the desert one cold January on my way home to you. At dawn, I filled the tank at an Arco, bought a steamy cup of java, then got on the road, driving east, alone. The radio waves were full of static in that old Ford Falcon till I hit la emisión mexicana and a two-tone accordion waltzed over the wires, a duet of voices, and that lovely, rapid-fire Spanish blasting up from across the border, and suddenly there were straw hats and roses, pan dulce, La Virgen de Guadalupe, thick ristras of chiles, crimson, gloriously hot. The sun crept over the horizon, a streak of cochineal, 70 and a chilly fog drifted in gullies, socked itself in along the Colorado. How I wanted to be in your arms. While rain plummeted down in Kingman at the base of Hualapai Mountain, snow came falling like tiny feathers all around Flagstaff, the peaks of San Francisco. I’d planned to stay in the high country, but now I kept driving out of the white drifts and into the desert. Navajo and Hopi lay to the north, Winslow and Holbrook to the east— miles of red bluffs and dark mesas, cliffs the color of ocher, ancient seabed of shells and bones. By the time I reached Gallup, it was a matter of [3.236.57.1] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:57 GMT) 71 hours till I saw the Rio Grande. Night had descended. I could sense the presence of mountains; the wind buffeted the creaking car. Sudden gusts of snow dusted the windshield. Still stars glittered in a black, cloudless sky. Up ahead were the lights of Albuquerque, the sandy shores of the river, and you in our first apartment down near the bosque— how you’d smile to see me, how you’d laugh—oh! I missed the fields and pastures of the North Valley, the crumbling adobes, irrigation ditches, scent of piñón. I thought of the names of those staunch families—Lovato, Griegos, Candelaria, Montaño—and of you, my dear hispana, 72 your sweet hips and warm hugs—mi corazón, mi bien-amada— what we whispered when we made love. ...