Two Poems

THE MASON

came up from Patzcuaro, he said
where the women sell white lake fish,
seventeen women and seventeen fish
all wrapped alike, fish and women, how to choose,
how, in that old market, I ask you,
the right identical
fish

But he came with a chisel
two pieces of wood, one string,
four months flat he worked over these stones,
limestone arches, lintels, coping stones for a well,
hot here, he'd say, not like my
mountains, and he dressed the stone
in a fashion

Nobody hereabouts even wanted to know,
like this, with his chisel and string,
him going on seventy, look
...