Purmamarca

Purmamarca

Tonight the rain against the windowpane,

like a Brazilian drummer,

evokes echoes of the past:

Days in the parched land

where even a broken body is too cheap a prize for nicotine;

Where the white-clad buildings, hunched down,

carry on their shoulders the weight of the mountains;

And the dry sand, flakes off the skin.

But during nights, the stars

shine like lighthouses in the dark;

And the cool wind blows over the red stones,

the streets, dusty and worn out,

bringing relief, the oblivion.

He stills and looks out, to the rain,

recalls.

Maybe it’s the cheap wine,

like in that gallery,

tucked on a side street of a small village

high above the Andes, close to the line between the sky and the earth,

where he is lured, following a softy sung words in Portuguese

about a girl eternally passing by.

For don’t the girls always pass by, never looking, never speaking?

He remembers the night

of the kitsch art pieces, fake Indian crafts

that the proud owner showcased to his guests:

smug Porteños

dark-skinned mountaineers,

and extranjeros with the sun still stinging on their skin, red and raw;

circling around, dancing to the guitar,

stepping in and out through the door,

leaving a peso, sometimes two, for the hungry man and his wife.

He hears that music,

smells the mountain air, the dry dust in his nose,

and the scent of that girl walking in, walking by;

Her brief smile–an invitation to follow he cannot deny;

and later, his skin against hers, sweating and hot,

searching for solace from a stranger.

Then the rain passes, the song dies,

he shifts and looks around,

sees the darkness through the windows, the streetlights;

And the memories, the scents, and the burning fingers on his skin fade away,

vanishing in the desert of his mind

like they always do.