One Nite at Escobar Parque when Even Handball Is Not Enough


It’s the summer we were besieged by butterflies.
I dream of calsetines and tapas.
Escobar Parque. The fruit terminal abuzz, and here I
slap this pelotita as if
It on its own were at fault for all my miseries and
all my aloneness.
Tonite, I am weary and wired,
A tussle of ill muscle and mandados.
My Chucks, my chupetes.
Simon. The nopales sigh.
These butterflies are leaves gone awry.

Deficiencies (What Some Down-A$$ Vatos Esteem as Loot)



A malformed jewel! Gawk at such
imperfections—

Exquisite cauliflower of the ear,
A stuttering of splotches, then, lethargy.
Impeccable oddity--limps, tremors.

I loan my eye to your throat.
Photograph the adam’s apple,
pulsation of larynx as white as an eye;

Artillery, artillery!
I could splice this slate of arm,
Disclose all of this monsoon.
And if I entice
these nubs of knuckle and foot;
I feel intrusive, trifling.
I am not shatterproof.
One of my eyes dwarfs the other.

4-Minute Homeboy Rant on Chupetones y Cuetes


The salt is mine.
Chupetones. Cuetes, guey.
Nothing but smoke, homie. You and me.
Sparks where the eyes should shine.
Instead, this molcajete of a heart
Heaving, still believing.

And where the oldest, boldest vato whispers
A plethora of peacock cuentos, who listens?
Shhhh, homie. Te cuidas. Trucha.

Once, these sparks were beautiful.
And now, the tirantes, mi pecho, my clowns--
an orchard of moretones y
Barrio corazones. My bones confess, guey.
Mis espinas, mis pies. In the blackberry nite,
this grito que tiro yo, guey--This love es de aquellas.
This love is prime.

C/S

3 Flores


Auspicious, guey. And the stars have all dispersed, simply.
At last! Our souvenir of oyster nimbus and Cortez prints.
Where the cusp of the heel of this continent glowers,
that shimmering pier—a wily elbow, and
the ferris wheel dead in its tracks.

See, I’ve put a box of bones at the bottom of the ocean.
For you, guey. And hastily, I’ve condoned this 5 am fortune
And I’ve honed the skill of recollecting you:
Caló voz, pompadour, 3 Flores, these firme Stacys and Frisco creases--
my own Popocoatepetl
Blurting, spurting that first inconsumable nite of syllables
And swallowed teeth, when like a newborn ghost
I stooped into the majestic womb-droop of tu ranfla and sighed…

Ay, those hours as heavy as houses now
Recede into the balding echo of this
Extraordinary freeway called nostalgia,
called elegies, called mourning.
Upraised, I will synchronize
this shit now, guey: will profess a gulp to a suspiro to
a magnificent Sureño Pendleton
I continue to own.

Bristly, brillante, guey!
Finally, I seize the prize of your eyes.
I show this box of bones at the bottom of the ocean to no one, and
There is only the enamored volcano, now, rumbling;
Only the haloed moon smolders betwixt us.
In my throat—remnants of you, guey,
the autumn crest of unbreakable panic
that what if this does not last para siempre,
as promised, this Love terminable and ghastly after all?
Insurmountable! My tripas agape.
The pomade glistens.