- SUNDAY PASEO MENAGERIE - [semi-pentameter version]
Tells me his name. Mack. A storewoman
knows him, offers a tamale, ancient
god food. Huehueteotl - oldest
of all - he eats, I write. Details emerge
around morsels of his breakfast.
Wounded in Pacific war. Two wives here
- no kids except theirs. Decades sweepinng floors
in bars. Trips north to V.A. hospital.
At the end he wipes fingers on paper
napkin, shakes my hand, rises on crutches,
smiles gracias at storewoman, and is gone
to passing world of Sunday paseo.
Meanwhile the sun has mounted beyond
three-storey Hotel Arreola, but
street tree still shades my head, so these hands and
this page sit scattered bright in leafy light.
I think about professor Vizcaino
moving to town sixty years ago, fresh
blood come north from the heart of central
Mexico. This hotel management warned
him don't complain about our sailors or
we'll throw you out for their yanqui dollar.
He stayed, and talked; Tijuana is now
more Mexican than ever, home to two
million other immigrants from the south,
and the professor is father to three
generations. Sometimes he walks here,
meeting journalists for interview coffee.
I turn my head. Five blocks north down the
avenue, shiny metal parabola
of new arch proclaims a later
transformation, a millennial monster
towering over the core of this surreal town.
That most political elephant, el
reloj milenario - the clock arch -
last testament and inheritance of
an outgoing mayor, shall bracket this
commercial walk of souvenirs and bars
cables thrumming in the harped wind
forever until it falls over
on paseo de curiosidades
giant roullete bicycle wheel of chance
spinning crowds of eager money to spend
encountering storefronts piled high beckoning
come on in take a look good price for you
and they walk and they walk and they walk
under the giant arch, up the broad street
local and tourist Japanese Gringo
Mexican Chicano weekend families
capturing video look Mommy
we're in Tijuana camcordering the
Indian woman and her daughter selling
bracelets of coral, Bart Simpson &
Tazmanian devil in plaster, leather
ostrich snakeskin plastic, silver gold
copper and one poet scribbling corner.
Storewoman sipping coffee answers her
neighbor's question gesture toward my
half-empty bench.
- ¿ y este que se llama ?
- Mack .
TJ Poemas
Mesopoemix
Gringo