FLORENCIA VARELA

Elephant Erasure

We have no lands.

No fields of tulips, marker stones

or any other seasonal affairs.

You, who do not collect seashells anymore

or buttons from weathered coats,

have taken to orphaning cities.

Whole buildings and streets undressed

of your braided affections.

Everywhere, people lessen their shadows.

Old friend, remember me.



Elephant Nocturne

In the reddest of our hours,
pocked by whimsy and lidless,
something always leaves.

The outdoors continues to swell,
beckoning some animal,
making bastards of my lacks.

By autumn's shavings-- the dead were always the last
to know, leave.

By our palisades--
how our defenses have shortened.
It's not an exercise of the moon

or the wrong constellation,
grotesque,
but the porch light flicking

on off, on off,
exhausting its demands.
I may be coldhearted now.



Nostalgia for a Cold War


Did the roof buckle? Modest, unassuming shelter.
Once the horseplay turned tiresome,
Not much could keep the tusks in place.

Once I heard the tale of a tree
that grew in Ireland (or was it a hedge maze?):
The spruce that grew its way into a truce.

I wonder how tall it was. Evergreen,
past-green and back to the thorn-bush,
ravening. A token for our attention. All

will fly, like a boulder sliced into wedges--
not reasonable, but at least possible.
It has a good ending. I'll tell you.