Two Variations
—for
Hazel, 1951-2011
1. Conjunto
When I
hear your name, Hazel, it is 1994,
you and I
knee-deep in the Colorado River in Austin, Texas,
under the
rock hollows at Barton Springs, both of us visitors
who met
at the library and don’t have swimsuits
to take
with us over lunchtime, under the July sun so rabid
we can’t
stand to eat. We talk and talk,
your
Australian accent telling of loneliness
from one
continent to the next,
brown
water billowing over our toes
like a
thousand sentences to be read and written.
At evening,
you drive us in your landlords’ Datsun
to a
cantina where we order tacos and beer, both
the same
temperature, because we are here for the conjunto music
you have
never heard before. The Mexican quartet
knows
everyone sitting at the patched tables
except
us, so the men in silver-seamed pants
flourish
their fingertips as they play through the favorites,
listeners’
feet shifting on soiled hardwood,
the
sandals, the tennis shoes, the polished wingtips
of the
older man, the red patent pumps of his lady
who leaps
up, takes his hand, and the two smooth their dance
across
the floor as all heads turn to follow them
and fans slog
overhead, shifting scents of cerveza
and lime,
green and tangy, over our greedy hands.
2. No
Stairway to Heaven
I dream
of staircases that end in midair,
steps of
gray composition tiles or faded wood, no railings,
where I
wait at the abyss
not
knowing how to go on.
Awake
today, I remember Mexican pottery
with
riotous blue and yellow petals painted
in bold
strokes, filling the shops of the Texas street
where we browsed—the
colors were happiness.
And we
watched an old couple in plain street clothes,
in the
cantina that summer night,
who
danced seamlessly like two halves
of the
same soul.
What I
want to say is
I hope
you had beauty in your mind as your eyes closed, Hazel,
unable to
breathe, fearful of taking the empty step,
and
remembered the tall young man,
your
lover later that humid night,
every
touch a streak of searing orange.
—by Jayne Marek
Bio:
Jayne Marek’s poetry and art photos have appeared in publications such as New
Mexico Review, Blast Furnace, Gravel, Lantern Journal, Siren, Spillway,
Driftwood Bay, Tipton Poetry Journal, Isthmus, The Occasional Reader, Wisconsin
Academy Review, and Windless Orchard and in several anthologies. She is a
two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She also has a chapbook and a co-authored book
of poems, as well as articles and short fiction.