Social commentaries

one lies in rags on the street
and his stomach is empty
and he wishes for death

one sits with friends at tea and backgammon
and his mind is empty
and he wishes for death

one sits in a straight-backed chair at a desk
and his bank account is empty
and he wishes for death

one lies in bed staring out to sea
and the place next to him in bed is empty
and he wishes for death

one flies back with food in its beak
and its nest is empty
and only this one says
we should give it another try

Off-season and in
the burnt forest
of my nightgown, a feral
undergrowth that marks
me as burial site —
to be still enough or
just enough.

My arms become fat arms:
hearth. I eat dirt for doubt,
a secret bleached
old as lie. I out-want
like a spindly
winged monster.
If I were a bug —
were I — then you'd hope
for reparation, and paint
more brown into the plot.

1.
They make such uncomfortable clank
child of earth
child of fire
These are your tools of the trade
difficult when you use them

A large trunk with children darting
in all directions
appears slippery in its sheen
adorned with thorns

I have sinned in front of mirrors
But I'll say this
in my defense —
Too scared to face my indecency
the voice with a larynx
big as mangoes too —
I took your voice burnt with tabaco
They say you must first imitate
before your tongue
jagged in novice
can ripen a word
shape it along color
before words being enough
change what's before you

The driver has no knife. He has no knife, no,
you think, and lower your head into his car.
A ride in the rain? The dark clouds bellow.
You saw him drinking at the local bar,

you think, and lower your head into his car.
Rain taps on the roof, falls on this familiar man:
You saw him drinking at the local bar.
He shrugs and offers up his empty hands.

Rain taps on the roof, falls on this familiar man,
and sugarcane stalks bend in the breeze.
He shrugs and offers up his empty hands.
As sewer pipes burst, flooding the street,

1.
Last night I dreamt I was Pancho Villa —
ragged, bandoliered, reckless.
I dreamt my poetry at the end of a pistol,
felt it kick nearly out of my hand.

But this morning I awoke again
white and assimilated into these cobwebs
of my half-self. When did I forget
my mother? Sometimes Spanish

syllables creak like wobbly shopping cart
wheels, I have to lean against accent,
fill myself with verbs: necesitar, hablar, poder.

I’ m eight years old and all the rooms
of my father’ s house are larger than life. Two days after my
first divorce, the only landscape I know is simplified, bone-smooth

and

Someone’ s at the door, somebody please get the door
Somebody please get the door.

is

Who is quitting dogs today? Making them their sister?
Who is stretched out by a lamppost sibling? Illuminated by ransom’ s note?

I was oblivious to pettiness until I saw its first handle: obey ignorance.
Stomach decisiveness. By that, this decision... no decision.

Let it be to gain all it can in one fetter... but if it be life,
let it attempt a failed recognition.

Let its thinker be the failure. My thinker is failure,
and I want to teach it how to move in this world.

Do you be or live?
To any the other wants.

“Mexican”
is not
a noun
or an
adjective

“Mexican”
is a life
long
low-paying
job

a check
mark on
a welfare
police
form

more than
a word
a nail in
the soul
but

it hurts
it points
it dreams
it offends
it cries

it moves
it strikes
it burns
just like
a verb

crossed
in despair
many deserts
full of hope

carrying
their empty
fists of sorrow
everywhere

mouthing
a bitter night
of shovels
and nails

“you’ re nothing
you’ re shit
your home’ s
nowhere” —

mountains
will speak
for you

rain
will flesh
your bones

green again
among ashes
after a long fire

started in
a fantasy island
some time ago

turning
Natives
into aliens