PIRAQUARA AT MIDNIGHT

at midnight, hardly holding hands
barely touching, we climb
into this misty corner of the world
up the stony hill
where the neighborhood grocery doubles as bar,
where a smiling grandmother wipes beer off the counter,
   sells cigarettes to a boy in a baseball cap-

we cut an odd figure here,
old gringa and Indian flute player,
making our way through the midnight
bairro, a clumsy fit, two different puzzles
whose pieces can´t fall into place,
me squeezing through the barbed wire fence,
you plying the strands apart for me with your
eloquent hands until startled by the softness
that grazes my flesh, i lose my breath -

this, you tell me, is a place where you could be afraid
where you could be caught
unsuspecting-
even with the yellow dogs to warn you,
even with your stubborn bond to a gentle god,
your buddha who has taught you and
your sweet Catholic incense.

trying all kinds of music,
we move into the night
you rolling the gentle leaves into fine white paper,
me searching for that which defies translation,
you searching for that which needs none,
but i - alas!- am a failed chameleon, lacking your grace
in scampering up and down the walls,
stuck as i am  to my origins, to  my concepts

simply waiting for that perfect moment
when nothing matters anymore, just this time,
and then what is time but the stories we tell
and what is time but the stories we choose to remember
and then what is this life but the fears that we neither choose to have
nor to bury

-- Miriam Adelman