Somewhere Else

Somewhere Else Olivia Ruiz (bio) A nickel won’t get him chewing gum much less a girl’s heart. Saúl says “ya se.” Just a salesboy in the afternoon as it swings between 4 and 5 o’clock, the last hour hosing the heat of dreams of noon. His hands folding into hard bulbs, he thinks on a tractor, at least a man knows he’s a man. Here pencils and paper clips running-a-store sits around like a woman painting her nails when he drops coins into a girl’s palm her hand weightless under change. Touch such a strange poultice turning the girl’s soft fingers to thorns in his chest as he watches her leave his show up in smoke... he doesn’t even have a dime. Olivia Ruiz Olivia Ruiz lives and works on the northern and southern borders of Mexico in Baja, California, and Chiapas. Her poems and short stories appear or will appear in Zyzyvva, Anthropology and Humanism, Puerto del Sol, and Blue Mesa Review. Copyright © 1999 Charles H. Rowell

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