Sucre, Bolivia Poem by Bernard Henrie

Our desks pushed makeshift together
in a makeshift newsroom.

News across the Tropic of Capricorn,
extra money for reading rain gauges.

A skyrocket the day of your ferry,
sparks on the surface of the river.

I think you are a war correspondent
in Palestine, three wars ago.

Your aching tooth?
The one I bathed from cheek
to mouth with warm water?
Like a bridegroom performing
an act of love we whisper
about in the village.

The cacao beans are ripe, I tune
the new radio. Work settles in,
long afternoons of rain.

Cocoa. Seven years pass.