Encounter With The River

We talked about the 27 springs of Rio Damajagua and how we no longer cared for the noise of the cannons. We were getting on that waterfall. Me tiro, he said, in my direction as I spooned white meat. I didn’t know his name, but I knew it wasn’t primo. He poured and poured hot Brugal into the coconut, hairy on my palm. Ya, no seas malo. He knew I was una Americana. He could smell city in me. Not a rubia. I couldn’t drop my English like a key in the river. I sat on the seat closest to him, watched the curve of his neck, la perla wrapping around him. The way his lips looked when he said my name. Un encanto.

I wanted to be unamerican, without a phone, tethered to nothing except montañas. Acres and acres of green snaking around us. I wanted to be his rio grande. Someone who knew how to handle a drink and a swim without life vest. A woman of leisure loosened to life. We were pegajosos and so deep in green, there was no turning back. Cascada, Cascada, Cascada, he pointed. Crowned hummingbirds flirting among the palm trees. I think I screamed at the wings 
— the blue tenderness of it. His laugh, profound and a smile you trust without thinking.  I stared at his chest under the sudden mercy of limestone. My own legs rebelando. Te tengo, he said on his knees. A mist of neon caressing his thighs.

I forgot the river. 
I forgot my wounds. 
I sank and I sank.