Ensenada Wedding

It was just across the border.
Your father and I had a pitcher of martinis,
the drink back then (I hear it's back), and we competed
with our friends--the best expression
for a dry martini: I want it
so dry a scorpion would feel at home
basking on the olive.

Of course I insisted on separate rooms: in those days
people drank so hard and danced so soft
they hardly needed sex. But the next morning your father
had on a starched shirt and navy blue tie,
and a coat despite the heat, when he picked me up
for breakfast. He was so tall
we didn't have to wait when he hailed a cab. He took me straight
to Iglesia de San Juan de la Cruz. I'd never seen
streets like that: our cab was bigger
than some of those hovels,
and I remember the smell of the meat.

When we got there the church surprised me: hand-painted
stations of the cross, incense, the red candle hung from the rafters
advertising God's presence like a barker--
I almost could have drunk the holy water.
Of course I knew your father
had paid off the priest: he had to--he was divorced.
Enough pesos, the father said, that the church could get a new roof.
He knew right away he shouldn't have mentioned the money
in front of me.

I had my hair in a French twist
and wore a milk-white suit.
While we waited for the priest to fetch his housecleaner
and her eight-year old granddaughter to witness,
a cloudburst came out of nowhere; it sounded as if
the whole town were hurling stones against the blue stained glass.
That was the closest I ever felt to him.

Our room overlooked the plaza, children hawking
pinwheels and wooden dolls
for tourists to bring home to their children.
I loved him for the wrong reasons,
and I wish that weren't
the definition of love itself, but it is.
He was so handsome in his captain's uniform,
those medals like candy
brimming over the cut-glass bowl of his heart.

I always knew the latest rage,
the mambo or cha-cha, and I'd stay out
as late as I pleased even after you were born--
that you love me for. Life's strange. It's always seemed best
in high, high heels, with a gentleman who knows how to dance,
no matter his conduct at home.
He had the maid plait bougainvillea vines around our bed
(even now it sounds strange
to say our), a different color for each post:
scarlet, coral, apricot, and mauve.
It was stunning,
though not quite enough for me to bear
someone looking at my body
as anything but the carry-on bag
packed with necessities
it had always been for me. What I remember
is the hotel pool the next morning,
swimming in gardenias.

Your father and I had gone through the war.
Bodies meant something
different then, bodies in the dark. All I wanted,
all I want, is noise. All that has ever left me
satisfied is a mariachi band
outside my window, burnished trumpets
blaring like taxi horns, the yellow braids
on the guitarists' jackets
twisting tighter as they cry to me from the loud, crowded street below,
Canta y no llores, Sing don't weep,
which is what I've always done.