"I never did the deed,
yet imprisoned for years I've been.
say 'Zihuatanejo',
its where I will lay low;
and wait until you've joined me.  

Find the grandest of all oak trees,
beneath there's a box for thee.
If the contents will rot,
you've gone and got shot,
or died of a natural disease."

So alone, for now I'll be,
Filled with thoughts and my memories.
From the depths of the fuego ,
to Zihuatanejo;
I know what it takes to be free!

We chose Ixtapa for our honeymoon
because it was not yet commercialized,
as so many other places in Mexico
had become. We spent a lot of time
in Zihuatanejo; We burned bay leaves
in static pots of delicacy, ignoring the fruit flies
as we drank mezcal.
You swallowed the maguey worm,
and hallucinated its life as a moth
before it's capture from the agave.
It hit you like the Gulf that
May of 1986; beautifully
and cold.
You looked like a watercolor
entangled in the rope hammock.
Wide-mouthed and muscular,
in the reflection
of my sterling cuff bracelet.
While I examined my jewelry,
our feet were buried in the sand
by the dust we swallowed during our upbringing.
Bred and raised for fighting, we made love
like a bull kissing capote;
Taunting one another in
a masculine ring, performing
in foreign terrain.
You were so delicate
with your hands around my throat.
You helped me forget
by pulling apart the wings of my droning youth
that week.