Maria
                                                        

                               Each morning at nine

                               She walks to the store on San Pedro

                               Baby on her hip and talks for hours

                               On the pay phone, leaning against the bricks

                               Hoping to summon from the wires

                               Some unexpected brightening of fortune,

                               Or at least mental change of scene,

                               Phones friends, her aunt, the transitory men,

                               Shifting the baby from hip to hip,

                               Talking about quotidian things that trouble her mind,

                               Roberta's rash, the light bill, the rent,

                               A dog that barks all night by her window,

                               Talks until the heat waves and fumes

                               Begin to form ponds above the pavement

                               And in the distance the dark sillouettes

                               Of the young men who hover on the corner

                               With tattoos of roses and daggers on their arms

                               Seem to liquify, become volatile, wavering as

                               They advance across the waters.


                               Copyright 2000 by H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.

                                                 In the Labyrinth of Lenguas

                                                            

                                       In September she fell

                                       Down a rabbit hole of foriegn verbs.

                                       The butterflies of her voice scattered

                                       And only came back at night

                                       When she was home.

                                       At school, hidden in her desk,

                                       Nobody ever saw her slip away,

                                       Counting her fingers,

                                       Alone on the other street of words

                                       Where the mountains rose up

                                       Behind the Cathedral

                                       And the Blessed Virgin

                                       Seemed to understand her.

                                       Only the saints could know she wasn't dumb,

                                       As her very lips and tongue

                                       Twisted into knotted serpents,

                                       To betray her to wicked boys.

                                       Later a teacher would vaguely remember

                                       Her lingering there, a shape at the back,
                                      
                                       Form without  voice.


                                     Copyright 2000 by H. L. Rucks.  All rights reserved.                                    

                                                   In Sarajevo

                             In Sarajevo it rains blood
                             On the snowy hillsides
                             The sledders glide into eternity.
                             From city streets once immortalized
                             On Olympic postcards-- now
                             They remove the dead to shallow graves,
                             Waiting for spring to move them;
                             In Sarajevo even the dead are refugees.
                             For water you expose your head,
                             To the possibility of silent bullets
                             That speed like hate itself
                             From the ambiguity of
                             Of gutted buildings.
                             Thus one learns the true value
                             Of a good drink of water.

                             In Sarajevo crossing the street
                             Is a vivid experience
                             Running from post to tree to car
                             In the pedestrian's down-hill slalom.
                             In the marketplace, where there is little to buy,
                             There are craters and ominous stains
                             Not made by spilled juice.
                             At night the families lie in the dark
                             Listening to the shells that argue
                             For going away, being elsewhere,
                             Becoming naught.

                               In Sarajevo even the hospitals
                             Have ugly gaping wounds
                             Dark with coagulated people.
                             The floors of vacant rooms serve
                             As make-shift morgues
                             Where the non-combatant young and old
                             Lie eyeless in rows,
                             The harvest of another day
                             Of ethnic cleansing.
                             Today on the menu is cooked grass
                             Wheat chaff, and roots.
                             The Angel of Death has not yet arrived
                             To hand out chocolates to the children.
                             When he comes in his camouflaged fatigues
                             He brings with him
                             The dark brigades of
                             History’s wrath..

                             In Seattle it is raining, sixty degrees,
                             Sitting at the table (instead of under it)
                             With a steaming cup of coffee,
                             Listening to the voices of children hurrying to school,
                             I am haunted only by the satellite transmissions
                             Beaming down images on racing waves
                             Like corpses washing up on a shore.
                             And I'm thinking how in Sarajevo
                             The fairytale of Hansel and Gretel--
                             Not-withstanding the witch, of course--
                             Must not seem like a fairytale at all
                             But a slice of life, altogether plausible,
                             Except for the happy ending which
                             These children, unfattened for slaughter,
                             Would never have the innocence to believe.

                               Copyright 2000 by H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.