La Sequía


Peaches are drying up all around
Elfrida, Arizona.  I must be
like my grandfather, without a sound
to show he's worried at all; his brown
hand rubs the elbow that feels like the
peaches are drying up all around
the pores and ridges of his skin and down
his back.  My father used to do that; he,
like my grandfather, without a sound
of complaint, wore a fire that was blond
on his head.  He too would say, I can see
peaches are drying up all around
through the blue-eyes bruises he gave me
like my grandfather, without a sound
gave him one summer, one night on the ground
ripping apart the only thing he could.  The
peaches are drying up all around
like my grandfather, without a sound.

–
        From Whispering to Fool the Wind (New York: Sheep
        Meadow, 1982).  Originally in Waters, and later [among
        various] in The Villanelle: The Evolution of a Poetic
        Form, Ronald E. McFarland, Ed.