Arica

HELADOHELADOHELADO & squeaks his horn (white gloves) ---
James tests the municipal xylophone then the chimes then the elliptical then the one
where you spin, what’s that one for? 600 pesos gets a pack of razors. Someone poured
such money into that mummy museum, it would be a shame to never take a tour.
I’m naming local breads for James. Harinas of here: a Simpsons inflatable flotilla
gently collapses onto the pier. A kid climbs out of Homer’s mouth, laughing and sore
because he went down forwards instead of backwards. And because the air tore past him
so fast he hit the ground and never felt the floor. HELADOHELADOHELADO
& squeaks his horn (white gloves) --- James reminds me of the time I tried to hang
clothesline but, picturing the grin those get, hung it loose and when rain came my black
dress dredged in the mud and tall grass while cloth napkins on the ends clung diagonally
to the aspens. Aspens are sweet when they’re born but then they’re bitter and their flappy leaves
look like roulette chips. I made my mother cry when I told her she should try cow lips
and travel more. Then she broke her leg in three places and wouldn’t come downstairs
until I left for the interior with James in my car. Poor her, that’s the law. HELADOHELADO
& a squeak from the municipal seesaw --- I rethaw last night’s corvina for us in the communal microondas at Hostal del Sol, where the one flaw is how with butter and cheese it isn’t an and,
it’s an or. James lends me his fork. Old fish can taste raw. On the highest plateau the air thins to nothing then follows us, falls with us, down to the shore.