1

I who have taught my tongue to bristle
at the tickle of a thought
cannot put into beauty the nothing
you have left.
The city is colder than I’d dreamt
& loneliness is stamped,
now that you’ve touched it,
like a statue’s marble lips
where a kiss has bloomed into blue poppies.
(Somewhere along the coast you are stealing
the devil’s purses from the sea
& all I can do when you go to catch the tide
is pray you shelter from the stars.)

2

The chrysanthemums I saw in Iceland were blue
(perhaps because they absorbed all the color
         from the sky.)

3

I am surprised to find the city of Luxembourg
bigger than I —
I cannot fill it in one night
& the bars are as lonely
as those of my home town
though I didn’t dare go into one.
(In a shop window I saw a gift you had made me
priced at 172 francs — & I loved you.)

4

In Amsterdam the chrysanthemums are lavender-pink
& the roses have no smell
but the people do — a Nordic smell
like chrysanthemums
         but not as sharp or clean —
It is easy to be deceived by beauty
& thieves & whores write verse.
(The canals are gold with October leaves
& a man across the way from my hotel window
reads all night & all day.)

Rafael Jesús González:
Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Department.

Nació en el ambiente bicultural/bilingüe de El Paso, Tejas/Juárez, Chihuahua y asistió a la Universidad de Tejas El Paso, la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y la Universidad de Oregon. Profesor de escritura creativa y literatura, ha enseñado en la Universidad de Oregon, el Colegio Estatal Occidental de Colorado, la Universidad Estatal Central de Washington, la Universidad de Tejas El Paso, y el Colegio Laney, Oakland donde fundó el departamento de Estudios Mexicanos y Latino-Americanos.

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