Sometimes a Scorpion Enters a Love Poem

Image result for scorpion art

many times the Virgin
of Guadalupe has resonance
you touch heart of Dolores
as universal pain, women
tending more than
hearth, flowers
of a dreamy field, tiger
lilies ears to heaven
interstellar places
where hermaphrodite
snail in our aquarium
bursts after two years
egg pouches
you are engaged
laugh

you see cracks in walls
as art, terra cotta
a glimmer of Taxco
pottery earth
of mother country
a dream, sometimes
fancy, you take shots
of Don Julio not
to stave asthma
but to galvanize
agave and soil
to sun and scorpion

a thousand maladies cured
you trace shapes
your eyes see under
surfaces, look to art
intuitively… you were born
with global style
Japanese lacquer here
dabble of aquamarine
there, walls near Cuernavaca
foisted hot air
rumble of buses
you still wish stars
in Oregon move
to Morelos
take you closer
to equator

did we say
you teach us
how to trowel
the earthly trauma
loneliness, despair
reshaped, saddened
you have many lessons
a future sharing
how to celebrate
even inside a war
of emotions
you are like scorpion
beautiful, a temptation
the tail sprung
ready for your
story, plunged
deep, floating
proteins, congealed
pain, but dreams
as technicolor as anything

imagined, your beauty is
held at night
florescent
even in death
bottled up
the alcohol
or formaldehyde
glows blue-green
a reminder Lisa is here
will always be a light at night
under the special glow
of anyone willing
to search

… for Lisa …

Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.