Aleida Rodríguez

Jackpot

Under the ancient oak,
little gold coins—
glowing islands
funneled through leaves—
tumble jackpot
at my feet.
These dollops
of light—flimsy
as a wish slipping
through fingers—
nevertheless hold
encroaching heaviness at bay.
And even when
darkness sometimes submerges
the bright archipelago,
the islands are not consumed
but somehow escape
and resurface
shimmering elsewhere.

---

William Holden

It was the hour, I’m sure—
at least partly—
one of the wee ones,
shadows thick as sludge,
light wrapped, or maybe rapt, in smokey gauze.
So when I first saw him—soft
fingerpainting in black and white,
sitting shirtless on a table edge,
doughy flesh surfacing from black ink,
enigmatic answer from a Magic 8 Ball—
I didn’t recognize him.
So smooth, featureless, as though
he’d been born yesterday.
A life of excess was a heady picnic at first
and—because this was mid-century Hollywood—
his craggy face, wrinkles worn deep as desert canyons,
morphed into magnetic masculinity.
But he was once this, golden boy,
baby-faced and unmarred,
all larval promise.
Who could have guessed
a clumsy, premature ending
involving a bottle of vodka
and another table edge?

---

Beatrice Unleashed

“Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doing
Staying far behind without you.”
—Bob Dylan, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”

At the foot of the Washingtonia palm.
Shaded by an awning of honeysuckle.
On a pillow she loved.
Draped with my oldest shawl—
hers, finally.
Smelling of lavender.
Pointing north.
Brown eye earthward.
Blue eye trained on sky.

One day into her journey
she sends a message
she’s now scarlet ibis flying
over the Amacuro delta
of Venezuela—not just one ibis
but the whole flock.

Tomorrow—who knows?
She may try on a volcano chain
in Iceland and the next day
thrash happily in rice pools
as water buffalo in Cambodia.

Savoring the spring breeze like a connoisseur,
she performed her last trick:
exhaling, the famous runaway finally escaped—
lime-green tassels from the pecan tree
raining in her wake
like tickertape.

Later, spotted over England:
a rare circumzenithal arc—
or upside-down rainbow—
a fleeting “smile in the sky.”

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Aleida Rodríguez arrived in Los Angeles in 1967 and ten years later founded the seminal literary magazine/press rara avis/Books of a Feather, the first by a Latina lesbian in L.A. history. Cuban-born, she was airlifted without parents at age nine via Operation Pedro Pan in 1962. Recipient of an NEA fellowship among other awards, she lives in historic Red Hill House, where she writes, consults, and translates.