​Dos Cervezas in Merida, Mexico by Susan Wolbarst

​Find a place to be at 4 p.m.
to experience the rain,
more predictable in July 
than a Yucatecan clock.

I choose shelter under
an oversized green umbrella
at an outdoor café,
securing my table
and dos cervezas.
This lasts longer
than a one-beer rain.

Turning on like a faucet,
the jungle downpour
soaks summer cottons
to the skin in seconds.
Neither waiters nor iguanas
run through these water walls.

Surrounded by my
round water curtain,
I drink cold lagers named
Montejo and Negra Leon.
They pour down as easily
as the deluge.

In minutes, I feel 
warm water flowing
over my sandaled feet
washing off the white dust
of Mayan ruins.

Finished,
just as I drain 
my second bottle,
the miracle
repeats tomorrow,
right on time.


Susan Wolbarst lives and works as a newspaper reporter in rural Gualala, California. Her writing has been published in “thewildword.com,” “pioneertownlit.com,” “The Ledge Poetry and Fiction Magazine,” “Naugatuck River Review,” “Poetry Now,” “Yolo Crow,” “Valley Voices,” “Foliate Oak,” “Eat This Poem Anthology,” “The Christian Science Monitor,” and other magazines and newspapers. She self-published one cookbook. She enjoys messing around in small boats and cooking recipes from around the world in her three cast iron pans. She has an MA in fine arts from California State University, Sacramento.