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.