Living Right in Antofagasta

“Foolish,”
say my colleagues at the college in New York
but I go anyway.
I bus 27 hrs through desert
(diarrhea, no toilet paper)
to Antofagasta
with its perverted dogs
battleground of indestructible fleas
termites secretly hollowing every wall
drilling holes through books
like secret eyes
(someday the whole city will collapse
in a heap of powder).
Behind the city
mountains of brown dust
announce the desert:
“Life is temporary,” they say,
“It must be given oxygen.”

The houses of the poor shuffle from the dust
like random cartons piled on one another.
“These people,” says Karen,
“they don’t live right.
They had money for bread
for the week
they spent it on wine instead.
Can you imagine?”

Someone else doesn’t live right
and he pays for it.
“Arrested
for defecating in the street,”
the paper says,
gives his name
address
everything.
(Can you imagine!)

Valiant taxis
rattle like pots and pans
doors wired on
brewery steams away
defying the dust with
liquor fumes
lit up all night
like an army of drunks’ noses.
at the Cafe Baquedano
drunks in rumpled pants —
every one a lawyer —
borrow money
and tell us what’s what.

We’re always invited to
Mario’s
12 kids in 3 rooms
chairs and beds circle the new tv
in the living room
— packed house on Saturday afternoons
to watch westerns.
At 35 heart trouble
and he has to quit the police department
now he’s a fisherman
always fish stewing a bottle of wine
“No matter what,” he says,
“in my house everyone eats.”
When his pension check arrives
he takes the 12 kids
wife
grandmother
ancient family maid from Bolivia
everybody’s friends
even a few down-and-outs
all to a nightclub
and blows it all
like a fireworks exhibit on Sept. 18th.
No message but the bang.
He doesn’t live right, I guess.

In the afternoon at the docks
over the glaze of guano
the smell of fish
pelicans swoop and dive;
we all skip work
buy a bottle of pisco
(it burns going down)
lie on the dock
and watch —
trying to be like Mario
but never getting it right.