To the Argentine Living on Argumosa Street

I picture you, the unclaimed historian,
clinging to the guts of an upturned pig in Mendoza
while another man, maybe your uncle,
opens it from the ribs.

Now in the dark end of May you sit at the edge
of our terrace, half-dangling,
covered in shadow in the quiet air
over the purple sky of a conquering city.

even from here I can tell
you are tracing down the hard rooftops,
summing up your exile to remember
some other valley like a lake of light,

wider waters those silver and rock rivers,
ours the newer nations made
from men and money. This month,
in a year when so many

friends are scattered from the spinning center
that was your youth, marks for you
the unravelling of money,
the men you knew,

long seasons that ended in the mountains,
when your uncle held down the slaughter
and you saw suddenly all
its shining parts escaping.