Ode to Neruda

Vagrancy often visits my doorsteps
and talks and talks of Chilean’s red,
its rivers of wine with spiced black
alleys and secular mountain tops.

Words often choked
from your delicate dialect
to unlearned ears
spoken in awkward
synonyms.

You beacon me unto a hazel boat
whilst lamenting your own soft-spoken
repertoire and politely criticizing my
clumsy adjectives.

You were a man who could scrape
poetry into battered sand, a man
whose coast was imprinted onto
his wrinkled palms.

For you, that coast was Chile
for me, that coast is America
and Miami, with its murk,
and seagull laments,
and salt.

Vagrancy often leaves my doorsteps
speaking in tongues- perhaps
he is inspired by the heavy stars;
the docks and their purest doom.