Bodega Girl

The small-handed girl,
hands carved out
from the cliffs-
who stacked the bananas
which came off the
ships
and to her bodega
on the corner.


And each curve of
fruit made its mark
on her body,
the sway of hips brushing
off the sidewalk each morning,
the joggers playing in the
streets.


Above the curtains flew from windows,
and so her hair was caught in breezes,
washing windows and making bouquets
for the sad men whose lives
were falling all ramshackle at
their feet,
olive branches to their partners
uptown.


Alone she was, always and
the windows had bars in the 
night, neon blazing out trails
as a lighthouse for 
the drunken each night,
a light for the basketballers
in the courts across the street,
playing into each night-
as she slept upstairs in a twin 
bed, stained with sweat.


The same girl with black hair
and soft lips that stacked all
the fruits into mountains 
of her home, with hands 
smaller than mices'.


With each jogger jogging
she set out fresh flowers
and apples, mangoes
with sweet tunes 
in a throaty texture-
birds from the jungles.


She was lost,
so small as to get away
with staying here-
to let her neon blaze
and her hips sway-
but she was not
from here,
and we let it go.


To watch her dance,
washing windows.