SAN MIGUEL by David Painter

Innocent -eyed, twenty- three, a pocket full of pesos

south of the border calling me

Peeling adobe with faded muraled walls

red brick showing through it all

Shafts of sunlight spread out across the room

illuminating places where danger looms.

A place where wide sombreros

give no traces of friend or foe.

Shifting hues of light never run true

revealing crossed ankles wearing those hooker shoes

her long legs stretching past the room upstairs

the air so hot it would make a pepper despair.

Gun- metal grey smoke curled around

her angelic face filtering through her dark hair

then rising like streams of mist on a

hot summer’s lake.

Half smiles fan the flames

her promise of passion

just one more shot of tequila away

prices made, pesos paid, and so it goes ….

Down San Miguel way.

David Painter is a Northeast Ohio poet and photographer. His aim is to

capture his point of view on the world through nature, culture, architecture and history.Dave’s love for photography began in the 1970s with the purchase of his first Minolta SLR camera. Through his keen eye, Dave became a member of the Cleveland Photographic Society and the Chagrin Valley Photography Guild. For the last decade, Dave has added poetry to his creative repertoire. Expanding his interests to the human condition, fiction and history; his favorite

era being the Civil War. Much of Dave’s poetry is inspired by his photography; the perfect marriage of his two passions.

Dave is a member of many poetry groups including Allegory Alley, ScribblesWriting Organization, Poems and Unpoems, Writers Writing Poems and Out of Your Write Mind. Additionally, he is active in The Pixel Photography Club and the local historical society. Dave was born and raised in Charleston, W.V. but has made the Greater Cleveland area his home for the past fifty years. He is married with two kids.

Instagram:@davepainterphotography