Vallarta

Two weeks I hardly remember,

though I’ve only been home three days. 

The grocer’s name who made us

fresh pico de gallo – holding out

peppers, onions, tomatoes, cilantro,

then chopping them to a spicy salsa.

What day was it we saw acrobats

flying through the jungle, magic,

the singers hidden behind fire and falls?

I don’t remember sleep, nor waking.

The soft air an amnesia – swell of ocean,

angle of the sand, how sunset drew

a line to each of us across the water.

Yellow, turquoise and red blankets

dancing in the breeze, clay trinkets

repeating themselves in every market.

Pink shrimp, blue scaled fish, green tinge

of The Virgin above the church altar –

Jesus slumped in a side nook. 

Who was the tour guide who walked us

around the farm with its mango, breadfruit,

avocado trees – the molting chickens,

a mule to carry us along the creek to town?

I can’t recall the clatter of the undertow

against small rocks at the point,

sweet chocolate chicken mole,

my toes massaging sand beneath our table –

how the humpback and her baby

breathed when they came up for air.