Postcard for the Album

These streets are made of domino slaps on wooden boards and diesel fuel

From irreverent motors wheezing up towards the old barrio they call Vietnam

And the same bachata song they’ve been playing till late all week

And the sleep of the dead

And the mangy old dog that hauls itself along and doesn’t chase the pickup trucks

Bearing gifts of freshly beheaded hens

But from the gutter barks its hoarse desire

A tyre on the ground marks the spot

And I’m learning again to make new friends

Out of the words I didn’t quite catch

Like the baseball OUT! I was supposed to deliver

And the tight-skin shiver of morning water from the rusty tap

And the sizzle of the outdoor pan

And the machete man and his sugarcane cart

Because these streets were constructed from all the spare parts

That make up the broke-down lives and histories I once knew

They were created by the stickiness of the self-same sun which hugs my shirtsleeves close

And slurs my tongue

And blurs the Polaroid perfections of all my recollections

Until you and me are here now dancing

Pega’ito outside some bodega or another where rum-soaked minds drink

The music of our dreams

And eat the tarmac of my silence.