Good Airs

Looking southeast from my balcony I can see the Rio Plata, the Silver River, which is actually the color of chocolate milk. Romantic names, labeling things as we wish they were. As they used to be or could have been.

The Rio Plata must have been named for the silver stolen from Alta Peru, now Bolivia, shipped through here on its way to Spain. The blood you drew from me left me dry. I fared just as poorly as one of your misnamed colonies.

Even in the spring the air in Buenos Aires is not so good, except around los lagos, the lungs of the city, which are filled with good air and transvestites. But every evening I watch from my balcony as the smog gathers the bleeding rays of the sunset and strings the fallen day into a cat’s cradle.