Traveling Companions

We’re taking different paths
to the same destination,
the two of me.

One of me has a map of Florida
I bought at a gas station,
when I thought I liked gas stations.

The path marked on it
is really nothing more
than a red dot in the NE corner.

The other of me set out years ago,
“I’m heading south, very far south,”
I told me as I was opening the door,

“if you don’t recognize the place
when you get there, then
I don’t know what to tell you.

I could go on about the high grass
and the mountains in the distance.
The intricate way the people

work the leather and the long,
graceful necks of the things
that range about there…but

I won’t.” He thinks he’s clever,
but I’ve known he’s meant to live
in Patagonia since the 8th grade.

There may be secrets we can keep
from each other, but that’s not
one of them. To be Vaqueros?

To ride across the Pampas
and sing at night by the fire?
How many nights did we dream that?

No, I know exactly where
the two rivers come together,
under which hill, and by
which meadow.

And I know, if no civil war erupts,
if the money stays hidden
in the pouch,

if the weather holds out, that’s where
the two of us will meet
the two of you.

Y si el rio se quema toda la noche
con las llamas verdes de canciones
de la pasión y la pérdida

then we’ll know we’ve found
the right place. We can throw
the money and the maps
into the water

and stay.

Now, finally,
just two of us.

–January 24, 2017