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is the Spanish saint
of marijuana.
The pot smugglers
from Mexico
pray to Malverde
to guide them and
protect them.
Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't.
Malverde seems to change
his favors to coincide
with the movements
of U.S. border troops.
All I know is I pray
for them every time
I take a toke.
I have to think
I am helping
in my own
small way.
The elderly Chinese woman waits at her window
watching the rain.
She wants it to stop
so she can go outside
and water her flowers.
You should hear the way
she talks to her dog, his ears
flatten and his tail
goes between his legs.
She lives alone, she drove
all her relatives away
and killed the cat.
It's only her
and the dog now, and
the flowers.
It doesn't rain
in the desert much
and so for most of the year the flowers
need the woman to
survive.
Maybe it's the price
of independence:
to hang their heads like imbeciles
in the torrent,
to drink until they choke
on their own color.
The old Chinese woman sees it all through
her window glass,
musty and foul,
the blooms pink as the tongues of seagulls
in a cold and cloudy
soup.
Mather Schneider's blog is at MatherSchneider.blogspot.com. He has a book coming out by Interior Noise Press in January.