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Roux



We sleep in the master bedroom of a temporary rental. I dream a car accident, backing up without a brake, can't find registration papers or insurance proof. A man with an accent calls to say if I don't return to the hotel, the room will no longer be ours. I crawl under the debilitated auto, spread paper in the shade where oil drips from two places, in front and behind me. You 
are nowhere to be found.

            In the morning upon waking, our old marriage tangle is rested and cast off. You softly tell me to sleep as long as I like, and later you hold me in the kitchen. Outside, red ants make neighborhood blocks of the slate porch, crossing grout tributaries. Two white and black magpies take to low flight then settle again on the fence. Inside tamales simmer in green chile roux.

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