I am from the untouched cutlery

The golden fruit of the Andes, stuck between two worlds; 

I’m from the fashionably late quick steps,

that rush down the hall singing a tune 

filled with the promise that one day I’ll be on time. 

From the duendes that creep in the wheat

only coming out when the cumbersome weight of the tropical humidity subsides,

crawling on tin roofs and cement floors,

waiting to braid hair that curls and bends to the will 

of the Atlantic and the equator. 

In me are the air guitars of 1972

floppy hair dancing flamenco, as fingers and knuckles contort,

foreshadowing arthritis;

I am Achilles Last Stand. 

I feel the sunburns of 1972 on

Freckled Irish skin 

blistered by the fervor of youth 

and the grind and pull of The Rolling Stones.

I’m from the grey Celtic cross riddled with moss, hiding in the fog,

Rooted in grass that sways and nourishes, 

With wind blowing through me, 

crying like a banshee

waiting for the sun. 

I reside in the place where meaning collapses.

Split into two:

deconstructed unity,

waiting for myth to put me back together. 

Rejected by the Guayacos, and waitlisted by the diaspora:

I was born ambivalent. 

Living at the margins of both sides,

I pay off my mortgage in the liminal,

Reading, writing my way out of ambivalence. 

Becoming both the duende and the banshee, 

howling and dancing like wolves in the night,

finally having found my home 

In the place where meaning collapses.