Jonathan Nehls
Santa Fe
after a poem of the same title by Joy Harjo
We went to see the orchids in Santa Fe, they weren’t in season.
You drank in our room, hid the bottle, but I encouraged more, then
we left to see the orchids. Passing the church, the bronze statue
of Padre Hector Gallegos and he, of course, was thrown out of a plane,
social reforms and equivalent motives, they ought have bronzed his fall,
a tribute that would last, sunk at the bottom of the ocean. I watched
the fall, prophetic, arched along the horizon and buried in the sea.
The road belies the outlines I thought were orchids, what curves mimicked,
only bulbs and waning possibility. I continued down the path and off
to the left I came to the bridge and turned to take your hand but you were
not there, I had meant to invite you. Orchids hung down from trees, clinging,
the river came to my feet and traveled me with others, then you were,
where I saw you, not there. Boulders, and banks, sides of the river,
I sat still and arrived somewhere else. A bus, bachata puckered my ears,
then back in the room where I told you lies while I’m not there, the lies
catch up, nearly find me, but I shouldn’t be blamed, I can’t help it.
Whatever you think you’ve found, that’s not it. Your orchids feed on me,
the orchids are not everywhere, not in the streets, not in the market,
not bronzed in a fall, not there; everywhere, orchids sprout
from my eye sockets. We were not there together and we left at the same time,
yet before we left, there was mention of an orchid. It’s not me, I swear;
you crept through the plywood walls, finally recognizing their utility;
crawled around cringingly, ingratiated your position by boring; your head
an orchid your appendages flailing roots, saprophytic limbs extracted
their rations once shared, now buried in my decay. My feet touched the ground.
I drank water, turned off the fan, wrinkled the sheets; you looked back at me,
saw me there through opaque walls, roots no longer reaching, with everything
ready for me to not be there.
