Absences (The Rio Bravo Dilemma)
Tuesday’s death grasp becomes Wednesday’s resurrection.
Sick in Juarez,
nurses deconstruct the parable of the starling in the desert,
the judgment of the river.
As you heal,
the names of historians—Tacitus, Gibbon, Tuchman
sound from your mouth.
Breakfasts of melon, blood-warm oranges, brandy
are served after prayers, after 9:30.
As your recovery comes singing from the Sierra Oriental,
bandits pay your bills
with riches lifted from both sides of the Rio Grande.
Maidens stray from villages,
crowd mountain paths, crowd nurses’ stations
to learn the turns and terms of your prognosis.
In health, each day is new for you.
At your release from hospice to Hilltop home
ambulance and escort mutter at the curb,
signs spring up beside your route:
“He falls and yet arises.
He is absent and is returned.”