In a room more chicken coop than room,
I rent a fan that feels on my face like sound. Low traffic
from San Fernando, named for a king who
became a city, a valley, a saint.
We are meant to repeat his name. Instead
I say prickly pear, a cactus
which spreads its many-paddled hands
into the space around itself. No pears.
I call Mom to ask what the latest austerity measures mean.
Some ants on the wall make their way from one
unseeable point to another; the banks have closed.
I tell her to barter; barter what, she says.
An acquaintance posts “Tourism:
The Best Way to Be an Ally to Greece”
as if in each tourist’s pleasure bloomed
a charity. Mules clabber down the stone paths
loaded with grapes to make next year’s
wine, if the tourists come back
next year, and we hope they will. I say we,
but I’m closer to they. Living temporarily
in a neighborhood named for the happy, who were
who exactly?
I grow a little stiff with, a little lean with, a little faint with, a little
worn with seeming.
I must need to conquer my mind.
The roses dead because of drought
because whoever lives here cares enough
to let their roses die. I must
need to conquer the notion
anything needs conquering.
Something in me can’t tell
what belongs. The ants
for whom anything is a street.
What sounded like a gate opening
was eucalyptus branches dragging themselves along the tin roof.
A yellow butterfly that has no interest in me.
I have no interest in kings.
The Happy
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