My Last Night in Chile

My last night in Chile,
I walked up the hill.
Five busses passed me with the lights off
—out of service—
crammed with people standing in the center.
That happened last night too.
So I walked up the hill.
Yellow streetlights bathed the sidewalk,
the shrubs,
the houses.
I was practicing my rrrr’s.
Chorrrrrrrillana.
Rrrrrueda.
Malorrrrri.
I felt the humidity of sweat in my armpits
and under my backpack.
So I sat down on the bald spot on the hill,
and waited.
A dog in the distance was throwing a fit,
like a two-year old,
the same bark over and over,
twenty times.
Another replied with four or five.
Then the first did twenty more,
this time in pairs—
makes you want to club him one.
Then it got quiet.
The sound of the cars faded away
like the foam on the ocean.
The dogs were silent.
I heard glass clinking in a kitchen
somewhere down below.
The yellow lights brightened the rim of the sky.
But the light faded as my eyes climbed upward.
The darkness took over.
And I could almost hear the stars.
I continued walking when the sweat had turned cold.