Poem by Ramón García

Swan Towels in Mexican Hotels


Towels twisted, coiled, shaped 
into swans
welcome you 
to rooms left spotless by the cleaning staff.
Every day 
of your stay, with the departure of the housekeepers, 
they reappear, 
these birds of transient air-conditioned paradises.
Glideless Ledas, flightless 
upon beds 
that are lakes where each guest brings dreams from 
temperate zones to rest.
Propped up, like Greek sculptures in museums, gloriously 
singular, or beak to beak in mirrored artistry kissing 
each other.
But not all of them are white (though the majority are). 
They can be dull brown, soft beige and even blue--
mutants of a race that cannot be pure and
in more modest hotel rooms they are less skillfully 
stylized, their swan forms less refined: 
A swan or some other 
animal? A duck, a giraffe, a seagull, or is it 
a skinny elephant?   
In purposely ephemeral folding, not made 
to remain as molded,
They are 
to be dismantled back to flat usefulness.
The swan 
was made to be un-swaned.  

Ramón García is the author of two books of poetry The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), and a scholarly art book entitled Ricardo Valverde (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). The Chronicles was a finalist for the International Latino Book Award, in the category of Poetry Book in English.  His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 1996, Ambit, The Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of US-Hispanic Literature, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Los Angeles Review, and Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas. He teaches at California State University, Northridge and lives in downtown Los Angeles.

​

---