At the Half-Stove While You Slept, I Prepared a Meal for


Soledad and Tonatiuh and the handball in tow,
And the Redwood, recessed,
Silent at this milky hour where clouds
Confound skylines and schemata;
Rigor, rituals—awake, and the soy fussing
Over a meandering flame,
And I’ve stitched sink water into rustlings, into
Reckonings and eyes and

Jawlines affect temperamental dreamscapes
of island Life, where after fucking, we
lay exposed and new to one another along
crooked, oyster-cased shores
and nascent sands suggesting—accuracy,
irritabilities;

and rousing the fat root I venture, then, at
this sweltering hour of no sun and sparse
words to lure us tepidly into Patchworks and
piss and tufts of chest
hair and the moisture of
Your underarm and that majestic odor between
my thighs when you take me in your mouth
and the scars and The thought that I once
was your beautiful Mescan man—possibilities,
accuracies.

Schematics from a Homeboy Discovery of What It Means to Be Down for a Lorena Street Vato Made Only of HEB Creases and Folds


I want to see drops, though I know how
They menace.

It happens. Like 500 stars happened
to the effervescent hummingbird
That happened to Baby Huitzilopochtli, then, who happened
To the flower-warrior cycle I knew so many wombs ago
as Jefita, and that fateful feather, sly as foxes and absent
fatherhood, duplicating cells beneath the waistband
that happened to the whole belly and body of our moon:
Coyolxauhqui, up in my sky now—slivers
And quartered and, in the heaven of my tripas,
so full.

So, I’ve happened, now. Happened in drops and
Penner tapas, to this pecho of the San Anto
Express News--all classifieds and obituaries for nipples
And a valley of black-grey piel. Can’t put these lips to
your pecho no more. Can’t say why.

Can’t read the narratives or retrospectives foretold
In ballpoint paños and Pelicano cartas and beautiful kites anymore.
Sabrás. Man of creases and thumping. Oh, thumping, guey.
All saliva and synchronicities,
homeboy hecho de mi piel. All mis pesadillas.
Josefa Salinas, Angelita de la Noche.
All my pensamientos.

I’ve opened a month of Spurs statistics and
happened upon your origami-jaguar
cora that’s all HEB sales flyers folded up exquisitely,
tautly, tautly. You’ve chorizotes in tus ojitos. A paquete of
weenes slapped upon the throat. Roma tomatoes and
Hill Country Fair twelve-packs for hands. A brisket and
bucket of yellow potato salad buy-one-get-one-free
combo for a kneecap. I see them.

And all I want is to see drops. Though I know
I’ve happened to you like the palo
Happens to the tripas of a Ninja Turtle piñata;
That shit that happens to us—time and longing and disease.
Aging and swallowing. All folds and cicatrizes.
Simon.

And My Hoja Santa Cannot Eradicate this Bout


of lament:
Silly, so silly to think it possible for
photosynthesis and autotrophy to salve that
shit, though she promised me
genuinely to accomplish this;

In her robust leaves, at three a.m.,
I find something, nonetheless.

Not tenderness. Not sulking.
In her stalks that pose and pirouette--
The limbs of tall birds like herons
like amber cranes lit by stale street bulbs,
Though so far from foam and coast and
storms churning follies
In the rambunctious Gulf, and
nonsense and tragedies and
thousands of seedlings riding salty troughs,
And grains of castles
like neurons and nonchalance
slipping through toes—

Fondle carbon. Manipulate nitrogen.

Hoja santa, grow for me.
Give me momentum. Give me millimeters
And moths and velocity. Give me that much.

The Story of a Kite

Regals, Acequias, and Bomb-ass Cuttys, Homes



i.
In this sprawling asphalt, Southside arithmetic and
Homeboy wonderland; Look at me—
Doting, groping esperanzas like corn truffles;
Aqui, we all are fledgling visionaries,
Fledgling camaradas, homes.

Thunderbird dreams. Dexterous fingers trace starched-up
Ben Davis seams. Heavy strawberry sweets, a throatful of blunts.
My lofty rosario heaving hope inside this Impala.
1965. Hardtop. Primer grey and believing
In these hard times, homes. Signs, thighs.
Down-ass pelons fondling
Watch tower tattuajes alongside
Charming payasitos placaos on silver-candied hoods
Of majestic Regals and true blue Cuttys; Trust.
This is my Aztlan.


ii.
Where resurrected xolos groom
Legendary Mohawks, and metalflake and Daytons
Hungrily gather, esperandolo.
Watchalo!
Scalps and pompadours! Tallboys and firme creases.
De aquellas.

Big-ass mesquites and retamas burst sinewy fronds
And yellow miracles that mimic faith; Blindly.
For all our vatos, For the marvels of this baby
waterfall that trickles and tries, billows of humo
emerge from mouths like spirits and suspiros and shit.


iii.
Black Magic llantas shiny as the womb of the
Five hundred star brothers and sisters—Military Drive,
Mi cielo, mi tierra. Watchalo!
Lonely Boy. Laughing Boy. Sad Boy. Y el Sleeper.
This vela in the shell of the sun swells and dwells and
Swallows these acequias. Industry in the city.

Ditches. Manmade rios. Shut down baños and
Choques of unrequited deseos and unreturned llamadas to
Isolated-ass vatos sitting, waiting,
Watchando, while the whole world passes on second-hand sofas
at Fair Avenue and I-37;
Heaven has gone the color of summer calabazas and fading hickeys.

Above us, el cemetario of clouds:
departed homeboys that never made it this far.
Honor. Corajes and cariños. Homenajes.
Schedule me a bout of Southside rolas.
Schedule me a car wash at the corner of Roosevelt and Military—
Sunny Ozuna, Laura Canales, Los Manhattans.


iv.
In the acequia, afloat are pachuco effigies and
Fluidos; Loves lost and knuckles knot, tripas
And tracheas on the brink of kingdom come, guey.
Veteranos loving veteranos, the magic of backseat velour
On piel! This is our San Anto, guey.
The symmetry of chorizo!

Pachuco Dreamer Falls Hard after a Classic Rosedale Low-Low Show & a Firme Cruise Thrown in Big Sleepy’s 85 Regal That’s as Sleek as the Aztec Moon


1
A la verga. That’s how it began.
A pinto. A pachuco. A presencia.
Commerce Street in his eyes.
Stacys and pomade giving a vato the magic
We all know as the shine. Like that, guey.
Two vatos--placas and ganas. Asina.
Estirantes pulled down to the waist and cuero pushed
As far back as the moist hollow of the throat
Allows. A love
In the back of ranflas and saloncitos.
A love to float cuentos to lonely homeboys.
Te lo juro.

Rimes y piedad.

Cargandomelo. Pensando del.
Love happening in the soft soul of my mouth
like a word about to come out.
Purisima. Sleeper. Those kinds of words, homes.


11
Baños y parquecitos.
Inside of himself--shit, the whole jale goin so fuckin good,
so hard. Tan firmote. Sleepy could see it—
One long, slow-ass cruise. His tongue
In that pelon’s throat, and the Regal as silver as all of desire.

Sabrás. The shit was inexplicable. De primeras.
And just when it got good,
Just when todo el borlote se calmo.
The guato goes down, el baile se acabó,
and all that’s left is the loneliness of the Westside
Moon and us. A little Temptations. Los Delfonics, guey.
Manhattans on El Monte Street and West Avenue and
Ribs that crack open like seeds and sombras and ojitos
And truths—

De verotas.

This is the sky of the most beautiful nite in the history
Of the world. A thousand cuetes and the freeways avail.
The end on their piel like worms and guantes.
He remembers. Always and forever.
Final haul to those pearly gates
Of incarceration, imminent separation.

Big Sleepy con Young Sleeper.

The nite la jura might bust down a door,
Blow open a wall and come for us, cuz
What we were doin was all wrong,
All wrong. On the outside looking in.
He could see it.

If this world were mine, homes.
Put me in jail.
Un minuto más.
I found love on a two-way street, homes.
Love will cause an inferno.


111
Today, the vato wields paños like pulque, and love sworn
Tlaquaches hum Sad Boy melodies about this one Flores Street
Dreamer who dreamed shit like no other Southside vato he’d
Ever known had dreamed before. A torcido’s love--
Barrio love at the Pearly Gates of San Anto County. Torn bedsheets
and tiny kites and visiting hours that
Never end. Simón. The view from below the
Watchtower. A la verga.


C/S

Southside Afternoon Spent Wishing for the Good Times to Come Back Again
In Memory of a Homeboy from the San Juan Courts



i. Zarzamora Street

Rims, rims, metal flake and vergüenzas!
Vengancias flare while ranflas nod.
Trucha! That tapa, that placa--De aquellas.
Bulges and spit, guey.
Congratulate me for my endurance and mis sufrimientos.


ii. Dominoes y 40s: Travels to the C&L

I watched. Homeboy takes it in the lung.
Down. So down. Couldn’t hear the air
Leaking outta him but I could hear his suspiros.
Write me a kite. Just write.

A knee never caressed tierra like yours.
Never knew in the vast bend of hard cartilage and
permanencia that scent we old school homies know
as Eternidad, 3 Flores, 3 gueys.
Ay te watcho.


iii. In the Name of the Father

Less vatos. Billows of humo and mescal.
Huezo will dangle like Puppet-veins and disaster.
This homenaje. This feria.

The sun, that sun, wide eye one of the sky unleashes:
Melancholy, barrio symphonies.
And Road construction abound!
Armies of ojas blot the horizon.


iv. Espalda, Mi Ofrenda

That thump. Brenton Wood and my bass.
River overcomes its banks. My cora, eyelids,
Cuero, the amp: bump, guey. Can you feel that bump?

Clowns and pompadours hold tight vigils.
Watchtowers wait for guato, and
we are all veteranos when love is involved, all of us.

La Virgencita aglow atop this old homeboy’s back.

Little Papers



i. Acquire

I fathom shit; Monumental shit; Lumps of Meaning and
Palpability slant the yard—handsome, idle things; microchips
and melancholies; turds and all things new;
Nonchalance gone askew—
Elephant dung and strong Epiphanies
swelling at the end of short charismatic films;

Longing gone amok;
Nonchalance…


ii. Plastic Release

Organelles. Irreparable limps and mimicry:
Long ones. Undertones. Origami silhouettes, flat bones,
Small cranes, Changuitos and sticks!
Bougainvillea for show; meanwhile, I’ve fibroblasts roaring;
to renovate memory; to renovate time;
I watch their bursts of shit (bougainvillea, fibroblasts)—
admirably, admirably…

Flora. Pinkish cysts. Fiery folds and fields of shit. Intricacies.
Little promises like chandeliers and chokeholds:
Transgress, trespass. Transcend.
I am. I am troubled by pharynxes and little papers, little flowers,
infancies…


iii. Cytoplasm

and odd Bouts of piety, bouts of piss; little promises;
inconsistencies; little bits like moths and monsters and
mobs, I fear these doubts, these little fits and
papelitos.

SELF-FLICA con 1960s-Era Fedders AC

Pajaritos
for JS

We might be birds, they say.
Hollow-boned, radiating. Taking flight
amid the weight of disobedient winds.
Birds, they say, feeding on florecitas, and hearing, then,
such infallible sounds as our aviary travels allow:
the marvel of nectar, so volatile, and of wing-flapping and crooning,
and these verisimilitudes, these piqued feathers and calamities—
A palm snapped in two.
Two ends. Madagascar palm. Exquisite oddity. Two spindly beaks.
Extraordinary! And are two heads the future?
Such miracles! Milestones!
Beneath the whispers of a skyline, we watch these palms now
Sprout under the watchful gaze of grackles and little dogs.
We might be birds, they say.

experimental Valentine’s after Work Poem I Would Otherwise Name Saliva If It Didn’t Focus So Much on Bones and Longings and Other Such Homosexual Latitudes

If I lost eyes--and these intestines that are raucous and all bone hard-ass bone bone like limestones and sonnets and heavy heavy-ass bones that thwack bones that speak bones that sulk and saunter and see things when the tongue of the heart goes numb as a star, and does not talk does not talk. then perhaps. this one thing. no one sees in me) but you) you can see it) you) latitudes. only you) perhaps you) that one thing one beloved thing one and only one only thing inside me and from you one thing) goes far far farther than anyone ever perceived human see humans like me like you; latitudes. we believe in things no) know things) no one else can hold in those flimsy-ass palms or fucked-up elbows but I’ve got eye sockets now empty as fuck but virtuous and vast as universals truths and inklings all inklings what I’ve lined up for us) people like us) people who see things) people who can dig inside an eye like mine and see the real shit the shit no one else) sees) me like you) cause what I got in these tripas) in these lungs and longings is you (it holds) it hold;

Sirena Poem


Part 2 (Yesterday)

3 a.m. and I’ve sent a sirena
to her second death.
Into a jillion little pieces
I shattered la pobre, and
all I could do was run.

I ran to LA and
to Revolución, and from Tijuana
I ran to the Gulf
of Mexico, though my feet
never left the room
where I’d clumsily bumped the comoda
on which the unsuspecting sirena had posed.

I dropped her to the floor;
Ran for la frontera—
Of all places to run.

I don’t have eyes
in the back of my skull.
I knew she was falling, nonetheless.
Could see it happening.
I know she was destined for death again.
Pedacitos. Regalitos.
And what could I do but allow these eulogies
Like waters to fill the girth of my hands?

We carry this village on our arms--