Saliva to Thread, Sternum, and Scalp

an escapulario has snapped;

kneeling, fingers fumble, 

nimbly wishing to

fuse the broken thread

whole

traffic lights do not wait;

midday, a sedulous task:  

a tallboy and lotto;

PikNik doors swing shut and 

open in unwitting applause; 

shuffling feet miss

him.

I could offer the young vato

what I have around my

neck;  

he will soon find saliva

will not fuse

a broken escapulario.

I could offer homeboy

a hand, the repose of a 

vato’s shoulder,

or

words of advisement 

(trucha, homito.   looking at me

like that, you already know

the bulk of what there is to know).

I could offer

my scalp, stubble, salt, and 

pressed to

the slick section of his neck 

where he will dream

of others after me 

(the permanence of ink si vale),

could offer

the sternum, where he

has never felt a vato’s lips form

crisp ovals, has never felt

that crushing weight of a vato’s 

goatee inching up your spine that

first time, where 

the prick of his name enjoining

the wall of your cora is a

new thing;

could show him my own

shit, those losses and aguantos

where another’s

letters dangle atop cora flesh

and rib;

(be down.  know how to not fuck a good thing up, 

yet, know when to say fuck it and leave

that shit behind)

and then,

my own saliva 

might accept 

his own scraped scalp;  

Clown, I will learn they call him.

he will tell me it all,

and intently, I will listen; 

(can’t ever say nobody ever gave you a chance)

glistening brown, scarred, 

his scalp touching

my thigh or the flat of my belly,

a twist of the mouth 

sets that space inside him

where the

thread has broken 

ablaze 

what’s your pit’s name? he says.

Cucuy, I say.  

parking lot has emptied, a place

as vacant as my bed.

works best if you just put it on,

make a knot.

(some things, pa, can never be fixed)

I spit.  crack my neck, go slow.    

Sweets

Entwine a mesquite.  Surreptitious 

embrace, potato vine and an eyelash—

(I wished for you.  I did.)

Stunned, your turgid loops rile 

whooping Cranes.  Venting  

Thistly neckbone suspicions! 

To pace and pause, the rigor of 

so furtively happening upon your

ventricle of a leaf.  This sweet vine harnesses.

It chides.  Chokes.  Climbs.  And I’m

Imposing implausibility, now.

Juddering, halted growth!

From here, the potato vine world is

Ungainly, untrimmed.  Friction is a pebble

Reciprocating for the improvement of 

Gravity and a slack kidney

(I fear it will not heal).

Fathom pelvises and viboras, wobbly

Helixes, and adept spines.

Kindling is the mindlessness of

forgetting shit (street names

and lists), fodder of recuerdos, 

torrents, really—

Foolish fuel, rambunctious neurons, 

a tangle of dendrites and oily, jolly kites 

amid Nino huffs and a Eucalyptus tree 

that has lost its grip—

Elegance of condors and night trains,

Elegance of unflustered swine and tortillas

turning brownish.

(You’re at the bars, and I have not slept.)

New Years underneath the Tower of Las Americas

Softly, in the dusk, a cholo is whispering to me;

Taking me back to the formica table of a prima’s tamalada, 

where corn husks gather expectantly in the hard waters of 

blue speckled tin, poised for smears of masa.  

Dutifully, corn skins part themselves for the girth of warm pork

pinched in rows and mounds.  

A window reveals condensation and palm fronds, 

which quiver and quake, unaccustomed and yet, determined 

to tolerate an Arctic wind inordinately thrust onto our streets.

A cholo whispering in the hours before the year unwinds itself, 

the cold on us like a barrage of ants at my toes.  Taking me back to when 

the air was cold, and I stared at homeboy’s shoes 

as he put the red of his lips to mine as the two of us huddled 

in the dirt of the back yard as we threw out his tia’s trash.  

A kiss that exploded in the form of clouds and candy canes and 

the scent of new promesas.  Later, keys jangling in tow, 

I stared at his shoes again and at those of his Tio Juan, 

a man as old as my own father whom I never knew, 

a man thick with years and jokes and who torched metals.  

Forged, joined, sewed the alloys violently into seams 

and joints and unsightly buttons.  

The moon belongs to us, the welder said of his wife, who nodded

at this sweet thing produced by his mouth, and folded

the corn husks, packing them tightly into a deep pot.

The New Years is a night of lovers.

Antes, we used to drive the loop and see what the city offered--

The most beautiful night in the history of the world.  The tio toasted

generously to our health and finances and to love and to the Spurs.

As vibrantly as a skyline of sparks, the Spanish fluttered off his jaw.

Strangely, I thought of my own father.

This cholo whispering as we cruised the 10 to the 90 to 281 to the 35 

alongside Brenton Wood and this vato’s homeboy and his heino, who’d

spent a year apart from his cora while he got sent away to the TYC.  

Four of us agreeing with his Tio Juan on the blueblack beauty 

of our city at night.  Great and simple beginnings came upon us that year.  

The appassionato of a midnight cruise thrown in a 1985 Regal.  

Southside streets impassable because of smoke and explosions.  

Rooftops and the black, naked limbs of oaks and 

the hard grey lines and loops of all these freeways and 

my heart as tall as the Tower of las Americas--

the skyline glimmering beneath the tonnage of so many man-made stars, 

the sounds of so many cuetes, and a Fair Avenue apartment where the four

of us pledged love atop mattresses and other necessary things 

amid the cold.

Where I’m From (la Mera Neta)

I’m from cigarette smoke and kneeling on sea shells to recite Our Fathers as punishment for fighting, mouthing bad words, and talking back.

I am from altares to la Virgen de San Juan and nopalitos.  

(Green, sizzling, cactus meat filled our plates at Lent.)

I am from Severa and Jose Rocha, from Martha Garcia and an unfaithful grandfather

from Saltillo, Coahuila, whose birth name never made it to me.  

I am from running barefoot on the grey asphalt of night, street warmth

permeating my soles.  I am from never believing my Mom’s boyfriends

were ever good enough for her.

I’m from bingo at the parish hall of the Immaculate Conception Church

and women who gather around telenovelas to discover things about themselves via 

the characters on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights.

I am from Gregory, Texas, and East LA, from Lorena Street and Corpitos,

from the Southside of San Anto, Fair Avenue and Hot Wells Boulevard, from

the white dust of dirt-road trailer parks in Ingleside and Aransas Pass, Texas.

From broken bones and digging ditches, from rooster fights, food stamps,

and tattooed devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I am from tricked-out Oldsmobiles and Silverados pushed up on fat 20s.

From boxing lessons when I was twelve and metalflake glimmering 

in the sun of a lowrider show that I never wanted to end.  

From wanting to grow up to be like my Tios and my abuelito, imitating

their walk, their talk, their clothes, their placazos, their dreams.

I am from Guayabera shirts, estirantes, tapas, and Stacy Adams.

From creased-up Dickies and Ben Davis, Charlie Brown shirts and Nike Cortez.

I am from barbecues on Sunday afternoons with a hundred and one relatives

and fajitas, chorizo, brisket, rice, beans, and potato salad for days.  

From rosaries whispered over sick relatives and unpaid bills--

cancer, diabetes, and money for the light bill that was lost in a street bet and 

never found.

At the kitchen tables of my childhood, we played Loteria and prayed before Thanksgiving; we learned that my cousin David went to prison for armed robbery, that my cousin Rudy had died after being attacked by an army of ants, and

that my mom had developed cancer in her uterus.

I am from those hours of men, women, and children--

the waiting, the praying, the hoping.