how deep is the air
above us?
I will swim to the surface
and look down all of this
at the bottom

there we are
like twin hermit crabs
sharing a shell
scurrying along a ribbon of road
in our white car
fluctuations of the
sea floor look to us like
valleys, mountains

we are passing the curve
where decades ago the
Vallejos family planted
mangos trees to form the letter V
we are looking at the sheep
grazing there, wondering
how they survive this heat
in those coats

clouds are moving toward us
from the east
we can’t see them
as we creep along, but
every day they come closer

later, when the rains begin
the heavy sky will seem small, as if
it barely clears the mountains
we will think thunderheads
tower to the top of it

but we will be wrong
even they are only eddies
in an undercurrent