Passers By.

Gugliel-Moni, Linda Maria Rodriguez

Passers By

 Shadows were sloping down the desiccated lawn
 from the bougainvillea hedge.

 --Derek Walcott
 Omeros, Book Two, Chapter XXIII

 What if it was we
 who stepped by
 without a second look
 as you do
 every morning when you walk Nena,
 your beloved boxer?

 True, she's an obedient dog
 and a strong
 one too.

 With head held high she pulls on her leash
 and if she sees a lonely sato dog,
 even if
 30 or 40 yards away,
 she tugs hard,
 muscled legs like a pony,
 wanting to dash
 and bash
 then
 lying by the kitchen door
 she makes you feel
 SAFE.

 But we deserve a second look!
 We
 who have walked the waters
 up through Trinidad--where we picked up a nickname--
 on and on
 to reach north, east and west
 to lands of cotton and
 cactus weather.

 We who
 bloom and bloom for you,
 origami configurations of
 purple and pink, orange and yellow, white if you wish.
 All year round,
 we who
 push and push and
 grow
 and
 GROW
 even when
 in spring rain stops, stones becoming harder to split,
 and the gardener
 in his sweaty straw pava hat
 trims th ...
 our top
 and sides, ig
 our petal-like formations taking fligth ...

 Yet
 you do not give us much thought
 any time of the year.
 Maybe,
 perhaps
 when you want to hide yet another wall or fence
 you say,
 "Which one might
 look
 good
 with the handmade mahogany doors
 with the terracotta shingles imported from Spain
 with the gray of Desecheo island banishing into el Canal de la Mona
 with the green of the mountains across from the upstairs bedroom
 window
 with the WROUGHT iron design of the patio furniture
 or the baby blue Isabel Segunda planted
 round the front downstairs
 balcony?"

 We will make up our minute flowers with any color you fancy
 and our dusty mustard sweetness
 will bring the zumbador closer
 to your gaze.
 But do remember why you really want US around ...
 To keep your garden

 secret,
 passers by on the OUTside,
 the thorns of our slithering brown bodies
 alert
 even in the hot afternoon
 when Nena sleeps.

 10:02 am
 9/ 8/ 02
 cabo rojo, pr

Linda Maria Rodriguez Gugliel-Moni was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has lived in England, Washington, D.C., Michigan, and California. She studied at Georgetown, Dijon, Oxford, and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Her visual poetry collection, Metropolitan Fantasies--textos errantes, was published in 2001. She edited Enlaces: Transnacionalidad--El Caribe y su Diaspora--(2000), proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, a project she directed and for which she received an NEH. Her work has appeared in From Totems to Hip-Hop, The Caribbean Writer, Sargasso, Mango Season, MaComere, and Thamyris. In 2002 she was awarded an Associate Artist position at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, where she worked with Ishmael Reed, and in 2004 completed a Residence with Elmaz Abinader at the Voices of Nations Arts Foundation. Her short story, "The Galician," was the 2006 winner of The Raymond Carver Best Story Award by a Non-North American Author and also was awarded third prize by the Society for the Study of the Short Story at the 9th