Colima and Post-Modern Love

Romantic love is sometimes a sputtering 

Volkswagen bus inching up a twisting

road, at others a spare tire with a bald spot and you the exhausted driver beyond rescue

from one more cup of roadside coffee  replenishing any chance of making it tonight 

to the splendid village nestling at volcano’s stony foot.  So you pull over, overriding an impulse 

to warrior onwards through darkness, 

and put on your one Jackson Browne album 

and let the tears roll.  As sometimes they must.  

A few hours later you awaken, mouth parched, shirt soaked with sweat. Above you a coconut palm swaying. Through the smeared windshield 

a spiral of smoke rises from Volcan de Colima beyond foothills stained green littered 

with boulders and old cars. You turn the key 

in the ignition and say to yourself a small prayer.