At supper he whispers something in your ear,
the Judas boy, who wants you.
We go to the garden where it’ s cool
and wait.
From my place against the tree
I see you through the window,
watch as you walk from door to desk,
reach into your pocket,
pull out your wallet, empty it and leave it by the lamp,
pick up a pen, lean over to write, then don’ t,
take something heavy from the drawer, put it back
then sweep the money into a paper bag.
En Cuba tuve —
I’ m tired of hearing your complaints.
All that whining about el exilio, the tragedy of loss,
In Cuba I had —
the catalogue of things, the status, the riches,
the opulence of it all.
I had a mate. We were a pair. Our mistress was young. We
were young. We would dangle on her ear
Concentrate on what you have.
Forget the past.
and go out on the town. Mojitos at La Floridita,
dancing at the Tropicana and later
No, don’ t tell me about later.
Everything was the apple and the glass of tea.
The mountain, the mold, the apron on the grandmother —
the neck of a brown baby holding its tiny head
to get rid of the black bees.
This is the end of a bad century,
the opening of a door that was never built into the chest.
I called the white donkey that hurt my left shoulder
the last time it appeared, ramming me
with its ivory head, cracking my back
to relieve me of worry and hope.
I called the white donkey,
surprised at the sound of my voice.
Scared, I wondered if the white head
would give me its donkey brain,
snowy matter dripping into my ears
like the horse of the first man who fell off,
the donkey teaching me about desire
and the moan, that white hair on the back
of my head that warns me.
I sit with my railroad face and ask God to forgive me
for being a straight line toward the dead
who were buried with their poor clothes
in the Arizona desert of iron borders.
This way of waving to the embers of the past,
not apologzing for carrying torn rosaries inside
my pockets where beads of worry became fossilized
insects whose dry husks I kept since a child.
Seven of them pinned in blood by
long, shiny tails, three of them still
alive and writhing against the wood,
their heaviness whipping the wall
as they try to break free,
rattles beating in unison,
hisses slowly dying in silence,
the other four hanging stiff
like ropes to another life,
patterns of torn skin dripping
with power and loss, the wonder
of who might have done this
turning in shock as all seven
suddenly come alive when
I get closer, pink mouths
trembling with white fangs,
At once this dragnet of cousins
Whips its way into your presence saying
None of them among us. They are
Oracles on the court of midnight,
The tight filigree of a mind or your
Splashing around in, your pandemonium
Of copper graffiti inexpertly put up.
They make weapons of furled hands.
“We will walk, but our bones will carry
Ribbons of lead, or we will, like
Acrobats mill-headed in 3s (3 blades,
3 hips, 3 tongues), answer to what comes
Before, what comes before?” Eleousa,
Master of Dark Eyelids, eye opening
grown to give this gun
to you that sings
around another metal grip
inside the stall that goes
against the marker that has cuts
and calculates their known
deception, something ran
instead around the parked
encircles disks. wagon, tent
was all that heard, no mouths
were twice together found
or borrowed in the ceiling of
another torso promising this
twice together head, this push
through veins that gives your
death another word, another
his, another whipping rain
with any arm and any end
