Reception for a Friend on his Arrival in Panama

I follow him
and anticipate his voice
because like mist in uninhabited places
I have a watercolor vocation.

Tell me
how are the market goods there:

books,
roses,
swallow-shaped bells.

Apart from this,
I ask him

about geological mangos
bordered by pulp

and a new river
unseen

with cities of sound
and the Archangel's longitude.

Tell me as well about the small coast
where recently the day,
like a heavenly two-headed animal,
camped in two aquariums
and filled itself on fish.

Tell me if the trees welcomed you unanimously
like the time they elected the year's first lark
and the day of flowering.

Summarize it all now that I tremble
so gently
behind the swallow,

now that I am offered publically
for a butterfly nude

and I am like the roses
unsettling the air.