Patagonian Welsh

A tea-towel spread on the piano lid
is her only map of Wales CAERNARFON
handwritten in wobbly capitals, Swansea,
I come from. Caernarfon was Gwilym's place.
How are the morals at home these days? Down?

Down. Her visitor nods, and his rockingchair
staggers an inch with a dry crack. I knew it.
I'm better off here, where I understand.
I'm never lonely-there's always the valley,
and someone such as yourself, passing through.

He is up by the window now, not listening,
daydreaming his journey ahead: pampas
blank for miles, and the desert beyond-
a thorny, parched, three-day trek
into Porto Madryn. You're all the same,

you young. Explorers! Writers with nothing
...