the part between the places
was our adventure, that time
we took the local bus,
me and my mum –
from the mountain village I’d wanted to show her,
back to the coastal desert where I lived,
the road was moulded into the mountain side
winding, the long way round
we took our time
passing adobe houses and
patchwork terraced fields in all shades of
brown, and tan, and marron, and russet
with a flash of a red or blue pollera
as a woman walked through her fields
across the valley, so far –
my photos of that journey
are blurry
as if they needed better glasses
the little lens could never do justice to the scale,
my mum had said,
there are no photos of us on the bus, together –
she didn’t like having her photo taken,
but I remember our talks about everything
and nothing and smiling about
the lady sat behind me, stroking my hair
bleached blonde by the desert sun,
the dip in altitude gave a light-headed dreamy
feel to the day, slipping from one height
to another, the bus lurching to a stop so that
a man, sat beside the driver,
could nip out and fill holes in the road
with stones; large stones he lifted and pushed
and we rolled over and onwards,
tinny huaynitos falling out of a hand-held radio,
windows open, in the baking heat
we stopped at a three-sided barn
and ate a sopita of broth and animal bits
which took turns to float to the rusty surface
I left the spongy kidneys, never my favourites
I think my mum left most of it
not trusting her stomach, partly left
a thousand meters above us -
the river valley on the left, the cliff side on the right;
the narrow road, uncurled like a cat’s tail -
it was a long journey, although not as long
as I had expected,
and I see that
the adventure was the journey we rode together,
not the destination