You return to Salinas glancing at the memory
in the picture.

You see the tricycle of your childhood
abandoned upon the sun’s arduous leaves,
on the sandals
grooves of oblivion, old leather,
the ardor of palm trees coming down
to the clothing still wet on the pole,
the turtle-dove’s strident plea
over the stalk’s roof tops.

There is the scent of an orange grove
at the windows of the adobe house,
the first longing image:
your mother watching the river, looking for you
between figures crouched on solitude,
on the south’s afternoon silence,
so white of water
and nostalgia.