Hot Day in Lima (a poem)

(Thursday, January 24, 2008)


The city’s streets here in Lima
(on this hot summer’s day),
is full of junky cars, so it seems
weaving in and out like blind bees.
Carbon smoke, it chokes
all us, eight-million people (a million taxis)

Ugh! –it’s a hot day in Miraflores,
Rosa and I walk by the bookstore
go in and check it out,
she gets a Sherlock Holms book:

Q. “Do you want to buy some DVD’s?”
A. “Sure, I’ll get us a taxi.” Rosa says.

And the taxi takes us a few miles
into another inner circle of the city,
to what is called the “Circle”

Haw! A few cars come close to hitting us (not uncommon,
I think I’m waiting for the big accident, it hasn’t come
yet, but every day here, odds are against me).
I tell myself ‘Why not buy a car in this over crowed city?’
Haw! ‘It’s so much cheaper to take the taxi (I’m either
too lazy to look for a car, or too cheap to buy one).

Great! We made it to the shopping center safely.
Knock on Wood!

I buy the DVD called, “The Assassination of Jesse James,” and
think: ‘What more can they write about this guy…’ :
in the evening I find out it is more about Robert Ford, the
assassin. Casey Affleck, the supporting actor, is a better
actor, than the main actor, Brad Pitt. ‘Oh well,’ I tell myself:
just eat the beef jerky, and the hell with it.

Great! Its 12:56 a.m., my wife is sleeping in my sofa chair,
I got to take her to bed.

#2179 1-25-2008