Weeds blow
among ruins. Stones
cut to fit tight, fortress
razed to three
stones high.
People selling antennas,
fried bananas,
brooms, scratch
their chigger bites.
Cuenca’s cathedral,
where I place my running
shoes on the steps for someone,
light a candle.
Ornaments, vessels,
tools for killing or making music . . .
Incans lived without the wheel.
Vendor piercing
the square with ice cream
cries. Little hands,
sticky with ice cream,
washed in the colonial fountain.
In the market,
so many
chickens on spits
and a girl sobbing
beside a wire bin,
so overbrimmed
with chicken heads
they slide right off
the edge of the rim.