Fat Mountain

Half-way up Sierra Gorda,
cool half-millions in half-
built houses huddle together
on the hillside.
Those cranes aren’t nesting,
they’re rusting in the rain.

But overhead
rainbow’s hope arcs above
empty scaffolding
and absent roofs.

Meanwhile down below,
poppies, stripped of semiotics
by geography,
paint vitality’s promise
in carmine splashes.