Pueblo Tourist by Sandi Leibowitz

The open door invited visitors.
Limping up the steps,
clinging to the loose wooden rail,
I apologized for my arthritis.

He pointed good-naturedly to his cane,
gave me a smile of true welcome
and began to talk about his home.

He’d been born there,
where his father also had been born,
generations before them resident
in this one cell of the pueblo’s honeycomb.
Like a duke admitting tours to fund
the upkeep of his palace,
he was living testament to love of place.

Almost no possessions, and those few old.
A radio with neatly taped antenna.
Some bright, chipped mugs.
Two chairs like shy toddlers tucked about
the plastic gingham skirt of a painted table.

Tired linoleum floors reminded me of
Grandma’s Kings Highway walk-up
(long since demolished),
its kitchen redolent of oily fried eggplant,
peeling paint, and untranslated Yiddish,
the window overlooking a Brooklyn alley
where shadows devoured stray cats and garbage cans
under the damp flags of drying underclothes.

“It’s not big,” he said,
“but for us it’s enough.”
“I’m from New York,” I said;
“we live in even tighter spaces—”
but he didn’t let me finish,
didn’t want to know.

Later on I tried again
to make dialogue,
share.
Met the same adobe wall.

I wanted to say, “I’m not white White.
My people know about persecution—”

but I shut up.
The best gift I could give him was
my attention.
I bought the bread
he’d baked from his mother’s recipe
in the traditional horno standing
with patient, open mouth outside the door.
Unlike the honey-sweetened fry bread
of the dog-thronged woman by the river,
this was as dense and unpleasant as history.

I ate his bread.
And I listened.



Sandi Leibowitz is the author of Ghost Light, Eurydice Sings, and The Bone-Joiner. Her poetry has garnered second and third place Dwarf Stars, as well as nominations for the Elgin, Rhysling, Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net awards. She lives in New York City.