The desert flows around ragged solitary mountains
down cliffs & towards the sea
pale aqua-grey – like the sky – evenly rolling,
breaking with a crush & washing upon the sand

A large black gallinazo skims the currents, across
eroded faces, rising, rising above the bluffs

In deep man-carved bogs surrounded by low
hillocks of beachweed, between grey-brown cliffs
& grey-brown beach, grows the totora

On the shore a man swings a fishing line
‘round & ‘round his head, he walks into the ebb,
water frothing around brown calves, line gyrating &
flings it afar

Crabs scurry across the sand, across fishermen prints, across
sun-brittled langostino bodies, into shelter holes

Nearer the village, totora rafts stand on blunt end,
their curved pointy bows rising towards
a nebulous sun

Poet-translator Lorraine Caputo’s works appear in over 250 journals on six continents; and 18 collections of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.