The Happy

In a room more chicken coop than room,

I rent a fan that feels on my face like sound. Low traffic

from San Fernando, named for a king who

became a city, a valley, a saint.

We are meant to repeat his name. Instead

I say prickly pear, a cactus

which spreads its many-paddled hands

into the space around itself. No pears.

I call Mom to ask what the latest austerity measures mean.

Some ants on the wall make their way from one

unseeable point to another; the banks have closed.

I tell her to barter; barter what, she says.

An acquaintance posts “Tourism:

The Best Way to Be an Ally to Greece”

as if in each tourist’s pleasure bloomed

a charity. Mules clabber down the stone paths

loaded with grapes to make next year’s

wine, if the tourists come back

next year, and we hope they will. I say we,

but I’m closer to they. Living temporarily

in a neighborhood named for the happy, who were

who exactly?

I grow a little stiff with, a little lean with, a little faint with, a little

worn with seeming.

I must need to conquer my mind.

The roses dead because of drought

because whoever lives here cares enough

to let their roses die. I must

need to conquer the notion

anything needs conquering.

Something in me can’t tell

what belongs. The ants

for whom anything is a street.

What sounded like a gate opening

was eucalyptus branches dragging themselves along the tin roof.

A yellow butterfly that has no interest in me.

I have no interest in kings.