Someone once called it the noonday demon.
I call it this poem which is sinking down
the page in syllables that frighten me,
an unbeliever in this beautiful land.
Let’s call it Florida. I call it this poem
filling with blooming fire bush, which,
according to brujas, will keep the evil
spirits away. Our house is surrounded
by fire bush and the butterflies that glide
among them, but somehow a duende
sneaks through the circle each day and grips
my heart with his tiny fist. His fingers
are cold and he sings Granada into my memory
and I see the snowy Sierra Nevada beyond
the Alhambra, and I remember the Generalife,
how the fountains spoke Arabic, how bare
footed ghosts slipped past the night-blooming jasmine,
their eyes bright as mountain stars.