Balloon, or in Spanish, globo Words with round vowels, wide eyes, open mouths Fragile tissue paper planets illuminate the night sky Ooohs when they ascend celestially Oh-ohs when they sizzle and sink onto a red tile roof Crowds alive with the pulchritude and peril of […]
An Essay on Home On a recent winter night, I curled up on the worn velvet of a plushy chair in a spacious, if poorly lit, hotel lobby. As the clock struck midnight, my companions and I continued a lively conversation that had started with […]
Dear Mom: While walking in Oaxaca, an ancient couple with leathery faces and silver hair approached me. Between them was a small boy of four or five. When he saw me in my Tehauntepec costume (picture Frida Kahlo), he whistled at me like a construction […]
The (Travel) Junkie By Olivier Castaignède Mexico City Airport, 7 April 1997, 9.30 pm Our company-arranged taxi left the international terminal and hurried along near-deserted streets in Mexico City. Peering out through the tinted window, I got my first view of this megalopolis I […]
