Aztec Sun Orchids in the Motel in San Miguel de Allende. Do you remember coming back from the long hike to the ruins and we burning from the sun to this beautiful room full of evening light and sheer mosquito netting and some Aztec Sun Orchids adorned our room? My only flora, do you remember? We had a few cold Negro Medelos and you put lemons in yours, you cared not for the yuppie lime. I always laughed at that. You were always so different than any one I knew. You layed the vase on the bed cradled in the pillows and just stared and stared. You told me you were looking at the ancient sun of Maya. And you wanted to sacrifice yourself to me. My question to you, my dove, was how will you do that. You said to me that I sacrifice my all to you, my love of the ruins, the Mayan culture, the photography, the painting, everything. You are my only love now, I disavow myself of everything I have ever learned. You will teach me what I need to know to have you love me so deeply. As it was, the tears were streaming down my weathered face as I had been an investigator of ruins in the Mayan region for years. Palenque, Chichicastenango, Tulum we had been to all the big ones, hadn't we love. All the big old ones where the families used to share food and built latrines long before the pinche killers of Los Indios. They were wise these Mayans. You told me not so kindly to not try and change the subject. You were giving everything of your heart to me, and though I drank my beer and stared out the window, you could hear my tears splash like a waterfall in Palenque. You heard them, I know you did. I had a large mango in my throat and could not speak, you kept asking me what else can I give you. It was a night of selflessness from you. I had never witnessed such a thing. I finally cleared my blurry eyes and the mango shrunk till I could speak, I said to you, my Paloma, my only love, I will die on this spot with my old self if your change one thing. I love that which you paint and your photographs are memories from the Maya, now disappeared. You could take pictures in the jungle and their long gone faces would show through. I was again weeping at the sacrifices you were willing to make. Sacrifices, that would make me and you a different two lovers. It is the you that I love not what you will become or will give up for me. It is your heart I desire. Only the heart. And your face shone brighter then the Aztec Sun Orchids I had secreted in the room before we left for the long hike. Your face was shining and not with tears. You were the sun that afternoon and I was the moon to your sun. As you came to the realization that you were all I needed, I saw a wee tear and I knew you were just trying to make an old man feel loved by a lovely young lass, and that you did, that you did. written by miguel Copyright by Michael Forbus