The candy man

for mi abuela

..

Out past the frame where the sky is all sand
one man stands in a palace built with his hands
frogs echo a song only the land understands

and when moon comes low
he talks right to God
spins sweet strands of hair and stirs a deep memory pot

with blood thick as air
children sleep with feet bare
and all through humid night
the tired man recites a list he could not bring himself to write

let your solace be your self-command
make this land your birthright

years later the one behind the camera
takes me in her hands and almost entranced demands

this is why I spent all that time in prayer
it was for you

now the words fill her eyes like morning dew
spill out like season’s violets in forever June

and when it rains       
she folds herself away beneath the moon
talks to the night and
prays she’ll wake amongst the dunes
in tall sugar mounds like sand

I want to ask her about the candy man
how life sifts through our hands
so she can’t think of that violence      just the sweetness of our silence

            how she sighs when reaches for my side
and smiles like she can’t quite surmise how the blood in her veins
somehow made it into mine.