TWO POEMS
Liz St. Louis
La Playa De Los Muertos
Do the spirits watch us swim?
Do they hear the hard sigh of the foam
up the afternoon-streaked sand,
and the thud of our careless feet
on the dirt track by their garden?
Do the Glad-wrapped white and
pink circles of plastic flowers
comfort them, when the moon makes
a hole in the velvet night
and the village dogs bark and rut?
Can they escape from their
concrete block prisons, painted
in ‘sugar almond’ colors-
peach and cream and duck-egg blue
bleaching in the daylight?
Do they object to us staring
through our foreigners eyes,
swinging shiny cameras, capturing
the ‘unusual’ of the scene,
the cemetery by the sea?
Would they ask their private Madonnas
to watch over us, to make sure
that the undertow doesn’t get us?
Do we have their permission
to play here, on the speckled rocks?
Did they lie in the sun once
on “La Playa De Los Muertos”
“The Beach Of The Dead?
The Price
One: Cote D’Azur
You dance all day in the
Mediterranean Sea, with breaks
for caramel ice cream cones,
and French lemonade in glass bottles
with hinged rubber stoppers.
Your parents stroke Nivea Crème
on your back, which just fries
your nine–year–old skin;
a few days later, the illicit joy
of peeling tissue-thin strips
off the burn.
Two: Caribbean
Light sings on your shoulders
paints crystals in the water,
warms and fills your soul.
These are bright beach weekends
under the white hot arc
of a tropical sky.
You read, talk, and
occasionally play Scrabble.
At sunset you go home,
aware of the afterglow,
slap on green Aloe Vera gel.
Three: Mexico
In a later string of years,
for two weeks every February,
the wavelengths beyond violet
soothe and heal the bruises of life.
By the pool decorated
with Styrofoam rocks,
you lounge and drink Bloody Marys,
two for one, Happy Hour starts at 3 p.m.
You compete in tanning
with your golden-toned girlfriend
who only uses Factor 15.
Four: Olympia
This year the reckoning;
a little dark mole
is cut out of your back;
the dues to pay,
verdict:
Malignant Melanoma.
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