Crimson with hives, I lie in my hotel bed,
a box of blue capsules labeled INDUMIR:
por suenos dulce y tranquilos beside me.
Swallowing three with red wine, I nod off
to drift from door to door calling, I’m here
for sweet dreams, until someone ushers me
into the room where you’re dying.
Winter gone, embers smolder in the grate.
The scarlet rug with a bear woven at its center
covers you, almost up to the eyes—as if I need
a reminder of rising water in this room with only
the white metal bed.
Again, I insist I’ve come for dreams, knowing
that when you’re gone, part of my dark will be
complete.
From down the hall comes the smell of stew,
a domestic porridge, and I want you, the father
of my children, not to die. I promise to stay on the road
with our basket of picnic food.
You rise from bed to hold me from behind. With your hands
on my stomach you say we’re headed home, and this time
it feels right to be going, sun sinking in a cold afternoon.
Then, as if doused,
the dream goes blank,
black,
my basket stone-heavy
and empty.
