He desires to clasp the gate That is around the Hispanic cemetery And watches the cars on Allen Parkway, below, Curve and toward the sun Become a gleam moving endlessly And instantly gone. He desires to arrive there and Read a few tombstones Before and after watching. She desires to imagine horses Carrying her away from here to the West, And other horses following with her family behind. She desires to follow the Cuban that she fears Since he is moving away from the refugee houses. There are no horses in inner-city; and The Hispanic cemetery cannot be found To souls wanting to rest there. "Este cerca de calle Alabama?" He wonders,. The rain stops. The hammers and saws peel their sounds from a roof. And he notices her steps Despite the stronger sounds; halts; And glances behind him as shingles fall ahead, While wanting her to completely leave him And wanting her to come with him. In Houston's summers, At certain areas, shingles like The god's shit falls from housetops And the dung dries in the air, Flattens, and ricochets to sidewalks. In Houston Cubans pack From refugee houses And plan to fly away into America, and depart Far from the Castilian hot-dog vender Of Herman Park waiting for The thirsty and hungered And those ignorant of what they want But know that they want something And so come to buy from her Who wants people to come to her For more than the chips Because the hotdogs are overpriced, Who formulates That she is unskilled And that a computer course would answer it all; Far from the Netherland psychologists who Stares at her ebony reflection In Rothko Chapel's dyed pool; Apart from others, and no-one, all Pulling alone for humanity to both Come and go from their lives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - The Politics of Herb's Woman Waitresses lightly frisbeeing out Dishes of breakfasts Catching glimpses of Colonel North's Photos on the front sides Of customers' papers and Formulating judgments Of rebel or martyr From an appearance And a few words that Drifted in when the Hands relaxed plates to table mats; Farmers wishing the seeds To suddenly open to be plucked up faster So that they are not The last ones laid in By their hands; Little "third-world" nations of people hoping For the great debtor nation to continental-drift To bankruptcy, painless and alone;