Permafrost, Volume 20, 1998

Page 16

------------------Permafrost

Matthew Raymond (Bob Dylan in Mexico) A Jacona Prayer I wrote a song on a borrowed guitar. I sang to walls that barely knew my shadow, for I was new to the house and the light was dim. There were crickets crying in empty lots where children played with fire and stared at me as I passed. I spent evenings writing postcards that I sent back to my home at the center of the world. My father cried when they didn't arrive. In the morning, weak trumpets across a dawn of soft footsteps and roosters on rooftops calling out for the light and for their cages. Women in aprons in cool dark salas lighting candles for the Virgen. I stood on those dirt streets and wondered at the horses standing still against the wall for the shade and the dusty faced boys of barrio brick homes and trash-filled creeks. I held my money

15


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.