On the Way to Condor Crossing by Rose Mary Boehm

photo by Rose Mary Boehm

On the Way to Condor Crossing
 
The young woman's high white hat,
embroidered in gold and silver
glistens in the cold light
of an Andean morning.
Status.
Tribal identity.
‘I sell you for one hundred Soles.’
Folds of complex pink
with black interruptions
don’t swish when she moves.
Wool is silent.

The old woman's broad grey hat
is covered in black symbols,
turned down over her
brows, turned up at the back
of her neck.
She is of ‘the others’.
Small and bent,
her skirts have lost
all colour.

Once they would have
fought each other.
Now they stand together.
Brown cheeks shiny.
Brown hands swollen.
The water is warm at
three degrees.
Smile at the strangers.
‘I made it myself, cariño.’
 

For a price you can
have your photo taken with
a moth-eaten llama or
a sad-looking falcon.

Rose Mary Boehm

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection (TANGENTS) published in 2011 in the UK, well over 100 of her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a good two dozen US poetry reviews as well as some print anthologies, and Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet. She won third price in in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (US), was semi-finalist in the Naugatuck poetry contest 2012/13 and has been a finalist in several GR contests, winning it in October 2014, a new poetry collection is in the process of publication in the US.