A Crumb of Smith: (from A Homuncular Storm)

Weird shaped men with swollen lips

hands larger than crustaceans with enormous thumbs

smash onto my windshield eyes blinking, panting

through protruding tongues

A Taste of Paz: (from Trowbridge Street*)

Now you have a bridge-shape

Our room navigates beneath your arches

From your railing we watch us pass

You ripple with wind  more light than body

The sun on the other bank

grows upside-down

*Selected Poems by Octavio Paz, Edited by Eliot Weinberger, 1979, New Directions Publishing Corp

© Richie Smith