Beatriz to Ferdinand by Mary Alexandra Agner
These letters wait for your return.
I write them when I should be sleeping.
The babies wait for your return.
These letters wait their chance to burn.
The days are full of burping, feeding.
I still have energy to yearn.
These letters wait for your return.
I write them when I should be sleeping.
Sevilla’s eyes all watch the wharves.
Your voyage is this eight-days’ wonder.
Unless it’s New World, it’s ignored.
Sevilla’s gossip floods the wharves:
your name, the risk, what you might plunder.
I hold my breath; you’re sailing foreign shores.
Sevilla’s eyes all watch the wharves.
Eight days. Eighty. Now just I wonder.
You’re not the only one with dreams.
Wealth, yes, but most:Â stability
and nights of drip-less, arid dreams.
You’re not the only one who dreams:
I want a husband and a family,
a home in Portugal with no view of the sea.
You’re not the only one with dreams
but mine lack waves, crave rock stability.
The streets are flush with orange scent,
evening guitars, lovers out walking.
A young don holds his elbow bent.
The streets are flush with orange scent,
my heart beats faster just from walking.
He talks of gold, and you, and I stop, gawking.
The streets are flush with orange scent,
evening guitars, his footsteps walking.
I’ll find you in the underworld.
I predecease you—and you don’t return.
You nearly circumnavigate the world
but all the roads in hell are curved.
These letters wait for your return.
Was it new? Or just more same-old world?
Better than my body’s world?
The babies wait for your return.
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