Head & Heart

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HEAD & HEART


Mid-sentence they down-shift

            a pitch, switch to Spanish

when the road proves difficult

            to navigate. In and out 

seamlessly they slip, 

            knowing that any trip 

worth taking means a road 

            that winds, climbs, means a road

demanding many gears.


I am all-English ears to hear 

            them disappear around the bend

of my one-lane sense of sense,

            emerge again like lisps of light

between the bows. On this ascent

            they’re laughing now, 

as if they finally found 

            what they were looking for, together

get up—satisfied—to pay for 

            their meal at one register

I am hungry to acquire.


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