“I need $10 for my sister.
She walks in circles
And screams at night,
the wailing of a monkey.
She tears at her stomach,
Says she wants the monkey out.The doctors say
there is no medicine
to treat the scream.
We heard there is a brujo,
but have no money to pay him.”“You think the brujo will help?” she asks.
He gazes for a long moment at his hands.
They carried powerful guns in the war.
They are calloused
and empty.“It is the only thing we know to do,” he says.
January 1995
A collection of poems gathered between late 2019 and throughout 2020.
Poetry, photos, and reflections about the mystery and mindfulness of poetry emergent from a year-long experiment to write a haiku a day.
Three poems written in the months following 11 September in the United States, Colombia, and Burma/Myanmar.