Friday afternoon moved into Suite #6 at Casa Libre en la Solana, opened the notebook to get cracking, rubbed my hands together, pressed the power button. The notebook lights flickered for a few seconds, then nothing. Five Days, the green lights flickered. Nothing. So I brought out the violins and sang the "the moment I arrived at this all too brief residency to get a handle on the strange either it's a book or a waste of time book my motherboard died" song. On the sixth day we return to you having written two letters by hand. Having scissored and glued one version of the manuscript into a blank book to look at. Having bobbled in the pool over an article or two on annunciation iconography--lilies, enclosed gardens, circular windows, rays of light, inscriptions, footstools--until sunburned. Ate organic trail mix, called Dell thrice. We rise again, Four Days left. Call it a long weekend. Call it a total wash and go thrift shopping, what people all over come to the Avenue to do (have my eye on a pair of shoes you'd hate). Call it an annunciation: go home, the book remains sealed. --But no. The cicadas are oppressive. It is too hot to shop. The documents are open, five of the six, and the power lights are on. Word is on.
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The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry is featured at the Poetry Foundation with six awesome poems by six awesome poets from the anthology and commentaries by Francisco Aragon. Go see.
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