Thin fog, as in the corners of a tintype—

where a woman in a long skirt and a thin gauze panuelo poses against a plaster column

where two sisters gracefully incline their heads in opposite directions though the white soldier has his arms around their waists

where a narrow outrigger floats down a river not yet choked with plastic bottles and filth

where groups of women walk down a mountain trail balancing baskets of produce on their dark heads

where the mountains circle their strong dark arms with ink and scars

where these arms that pound the grain could also lift the sky

where a man is holding a scrap of paper he has picked up from a table, and try as I might,
I cannot decipher the message that might have been written there

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.