Rainy Season

The marketplace opens
At six A.M. and it is fair and hot
as a nervy adolescent.
Another scorcher, say the Americans.
The Indian tribes are headed for extinction,
The language loses syllables, the hats
They used to weave are plastic, and their beauty
Is gliding into the cameras of the Americans.

A bare-assed baby chugs a Coca-Cola,
Mud between her toes, her vulva puffy.
A boy rushes between egg-baskets, shrilly
Calling somebody: Míra, míra.

Two in the afternoon, indigo clouds
Advance over the mountains.
The enormous drops plummet
Like prayers going downhill. Afterward,
The pavement’s slippery with rotten things,
And wetly shines, reflecting heaven.

-Alicia Ostriker, from her book “Imaginary Lover”