COUSINS

The Aztec calendar disappears
when he stretches his arms.
It folds into the skin between his shoulder blades-
a tattoo of time winking.
 Salvador pounds to the dawn
charming the sun by drum.
Martin watches him,
arms wrapped around his body
tattooed by civilization-
tan line boundaries on his skin.
He brushes his teeth religiously.
Salvador cleans his beads in his mouth;
ritual clicking of stories against molars.

The men write 
lying in hammocks, toes curled around the knots of rope.
Something is crumpled but true
the dismissed the discarded
poems like cockroaches
they skitter across the wooden planks
with each indolent sigh from the coast.

They eat watermelon sometimes
just to pick out the seeds
pushing enough of them between the planks
to warp the boards beneath them. 
Slowly swinging, Salvador offers
deep within his hammock-
 if they grow I'll send you one
with the poems you forget 
when you leave.

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