Full moon
Again

Darling moon in
Such a hurry

Through the years

Tears have found the floodgates
and a way around
a day
of heavy rain
cleansing
the watershed

Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare

to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years  

yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls

she kneads the big *****, pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another

then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see

she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter

the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them

now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang

Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name

nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun

Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven

it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve

holy, holy, holy...

ten beams into the building I knew her
she was the tiller from a seagoing vessel
a sway a leech to the port a missing tender
a long lost vestige of her cargo
the gold the plates
the necklaces traded
all on the bottom
and this tenth beam now holding the center of the floor of
this old building straight and level
had her strength once floating
on a sea ridge a foam of shore
crashed into
and broken apart
and spent and forgotten and under dark tides
was alone
in her failure so long ago
that sent men and cargo to the depths
she staggered again into being
taken from a watery death to live
as the  support
of this
odd sort of haunted structure
proud now and determined
wood finished and raw and old  and bowed yet
stout and proud
and I sensed her ten beams in