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October Coming On
The billy has mounted the female goat, and she is becoming fat. Rosa feeds her pears and apples and leftover coffee cake. She’s taken a folding chair out to where they are tied, and the nanny nuzzles in her lap like one of the tabby cats. As the creature’s belly swells, Rosa feels the engorging in her own belly. The billy is an indifferent animal who has discovered he can drag his concrete blocks all the way around the house, so a second block must be added. Rosa won’t mind eating him. She walks along the river, not to catch the bus today; it is Sunday after church, the day Esmeralda’s mother makes tamales. Rosa goes to the Mexican store to buy Laureano the mole tamales he loves.
All the berries out today along the river. Purple gooseberry, red box, cloudy blue juni
