BIO
Stuart Gunter is working toward a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling and lives in Schuyler, Virginia. He likes to paddle the Rockfish River and play drums in obscure rock bands. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in London Grip, Gravel, Deep South, Streetlight, and The Madison Review, among others.
Beach Vendor
Chacala, Mexico
He walks up the beach every day,
(he’s my favorite of the roving
hawkers who sell jewelry, blankets,
candy, oysters, and guayaberas)
the patient old man in a crisp polo
shirt and Panama hat, ironed jeans
with a leather belt and a big silver
and turquoise buckle. He sets his
sculptures on the same rock each
time, wooden animals he has carved
and buffed to a ruddy sheen. His
prescription glasses distort
his eyes as he stands, surveying
the beach: red umbrellas, hammocks
under the thatched cover, waiting
for a customer. He talks to a father
and son, who hold the wooden elephant,
give it back, then walk off down the beach,
the father shaking his head, saying No, gracias.
It Would Never Work Out
Chacala, Mexico
The dead rest well in Mexico
in painted roadside mausoleums.
A cluster of sea birds glitter
across the flat sea, and a pelican
sits on the blue edge of a tour boat.
Cairns on the rocky beach. A mobile
of driftwood birds, fish, and moons tied
with fishing line to a stick, variegated
leaves in the background by the pool.
Volcanic rocks. An old rope ladder in
an older tanbark oak. Sailboats moored
on the bay. Mysterious young woman
with a butterfly tattoo, faded Levis
and a halter top, ring in her upturned
nose, sitting on a rock talking to a boy
holding a motorcycle helmet.
The smell of mangoes on
the evening air. The silence between
the crash of waves. Frigate birds floating
on tendrils of air, the thermals that keep
them afloat, their flight a kind of geometry
lesson. Gulls and terns follow a slow
moving fishing boat.
******
Image Credit: Foundry Co.
