August 2021
Bio Note: I am a voluntarily displaced person, a bit of a push-over by the winds of life. My first poems were in German, and they rhymed. I still have them somewhere. Written on a typewriter, corrected by hand. I think, dream, write in English. Living in Peru, Spanish is my new orange. Just signed the contract with Kelsay books for publication of my fifth poetry collection. Everything you want to know you'll find on my website.
The Last Calendar
Before the Spanish came
the Mayans managed.
Halach-Huinic, the mighty governors,
and their civil servants:
the bataboobs, ahcuch caboobs,
ah holpops and the tupiles.
Everyone had their place. Knew
where they belonged.
Tikal, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Palenque,
Mayapán, Copán.
Kukulkán, the über-god, the creator,
the universal wisdom,
also benefited from hierarchy.
Some sub-gods could be blamed for
the weather, the wars, the water and death.
He even had Ixtab, a goddess
responsible for suicides.
Mathematicians, sculptors, architects,
astronomers,
and a stone calendar left
hidden, for others to find
and for all to misunderstand.
The Walk
Walking under Jacaranda, every step defies gravity. The white-blond kid
who wanted to marry me. My brother.
Inside his femurs lies death, no longer sleeping. Inside his blood
a bitter cocktail. Three weeks on, four weeks off.
When he was eight, the weight of where he’d find a wife tormented him.
He held my hand when I learned to walk.
I walked far away, leaving him to his distresses, the burden
too heavy for me.
His wife slowly bent under that weight. Today I hold his hand while he walks,
unsteady, to the front line.
©2021 Rose Mary Boehm
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