corrido

 

just when you thought the thing would run

slow in the dancing confound of love

you realized a note forgotten     expansive

on its own

 

his thumb  his strings and fifteen children

sang tore out your heart and threw it back

with you knowing

the glide and trudge of horses

delivering more than news

 

a fiction like a cat wants so to hold

an interpretation of instrument

only the blind translate

let nothing get in the cat's way     chase though

as if fantastic shadows were to be ignored

all wrapped about a shoulder

easing parrots from your mouth

 

the horse has crushed the cat

to its ninth time around a peso     your

pockets still full

your mind attests you had more there to give

but he has you stuck

in the shock

of his opened eyes

 

this is the price     the way the song

is paid for    the corrido

you can never dance to lightly

as it takes your mind

meanwhile children count their father's

change