Nature

Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.

Every morning my brother makes
the cool beach new for them.
With a wooden board he smooths
away all footprints.

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.

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,

We’ d often
been included in

the weather, whose
changes (as in the

still, portending
darknesses of after

noon) were hardly
evident, if even

manifest at all.
The August rain

over Mixcoac
& the deadening

of all aspect
at a distance:

yet our sudden
wet bodies, firm

swelling divested
finally of shirts

& trousers, left
beside turbid

footprints on
the tiled floor;

this tongue, these
lips the lightning

Our big city is a city of big bombs and big bicycles, we hire grafters for their pretty art. To force a shoot inside a shoot, to grow an apple on a crab, to grow a plum upon a leprechaun. Dyspepsia is often grafted upon hysteria. To grow a boy inside a belly, cutting capers. Words, through grace, are grafted in our heart and the orange bears a greener fruit that blossoms as it swells. With imperfect grace from that perfect grace from wherever that perfect grace may remain.

Turn it over and look up
into the sphere of heaven.
The tracery is lucent,
light seeping through to write,
white-ink your face, upturned.

Swing it below
and it's a cradle of blue water,
the sea, a womb.
A mixing bowl
for Babylonian gods.
Here, they whirl up the cosmos.

The mountain have changed to buildings
Is this hallway the inside of a stem
That has a rattling flower for a head,
Immense tree bark with roots made out of
Mailboxes?
In the vertical village moons fly out of
Apartment windows and though what you
See is a modern city
The mountain’ s guitars pluck inside
It’ s agriculture taking an elevator
Through urban caves which lead to
Paths underground They say Camuy
To Hutuado
Taino subground like the IRT in
Constant motion

La luna
Sang the miles por los palos
de Nebraska
You bunch of lights
And houses How did you walk
to this place
Buffalo Bill
Better know him some Spanish
Para Horses ride
rubber horseshoes
moderno.

El café
Boiled water/no milk in sight.
Homes that will travel interstate
8 o tomorrow in the morning
for the next edge of town.

Time is crying upon the backs of lizards,
Through the white stone of the medieval city
They dash.
The houses that are walking up the stairs,
Flowers out of ruins,
Further into the fortress,
The sounds of a language registers
In our dreams.

Words which are my hat in the city,
Coming through the bamboo
The shadows of lost meaning —
Tilted light making slivers
Through the forest of the mambo
Behind the eyes.