frankenstein projections
Some say they looked on the young man with concern
when he began buttering brains, charging limp hands with memories. Say you saw the bodies, pierced through with lightning, all to learn
how to mold himself into the dead, little knowing that to disobey
the commands of nature and God can only lead to one conclusion.
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teetering through the bitter cosmos of a solitary life, so full of someone else¡¯s imagination. Creatures
have never looked so human, or so alien. For
all of his death work he was met in the corridor by his shadow, his living thoughts and features that could only end in woe.
grave poet
grave poet
These ancient words are all I, aching, say.
I steal them from the dead of breaking day.
Words that hung on lips¡ªnow battered, old stone.
I cannot help remembering them, now my own.
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I used these words one autumn day out loud
¡ªa figure in the streets, broken and bowed¡ª
with a voice that wasn¡¯t quite my own;
the skeletons joined me with flutes of bone.
You met my eyes and spoke in shadowed tones,
a melody that matched my own and shone.
We mingled with the poets long since gone,
the sounds we stole an ancient kind of song.
different mold
different mold
Clay stretches over the styrofoam
store model head, like cheap surgical gloves
snapped over doctor¡¯s hands, giving birth
to thick lips and defiant brows, a proud
forehead and two hills below sightless eyes.
My thumbs dig ridges into her cheekbones,
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extra flesh stripped off, a savage sacrifice
to the pugmill gods for future resurrection.
She stares out at me until I seal her eyes shut,
encasing my fleshy fears as she enters the kiln.
Adorned with a mountain range of gears
raising from her forehead like a mechanical crown.
1950¡ã F. She is sweating, becoming stone¡ª
now a mangled corpse on an altar of clay.
Her eyes lying beside her nose, a cheekbone
resting in a premature grave. But there she is again,
ashy white as though recovering from a sickness
but unbroken, a techo queen, crown untouched.
i wonder if stonehenge
i wonder if stonehenge
George Borrow grasping for a past temple
or the hands who raised the monoliths of stone.
I am looking for a way back, a way to dig
deep into the earth and stumble on the Stonehenge of before.
Who grappled with gravity to create a roofless
sanctuary, a kind of crossroads?
Unlike Borrow, I must take in these gray kings
from a distance, roped off and monitored.
The crows above flirt with the stone, lighting
on the rocks with a practiced ease. Sheep nearby graze
as they have since the rocks¡¯ birth, remembering a time
when they roamed freely within the stone boundary.
At first I am underwhelmed, seeing Stonehenge through the blurred
window panes of the tourist bus. Small baby teeth in a great maw
of grass and sky. But shuffling closer, the stones become the mighty
incisors I previously envisioned. Not skyscraper tall, but an ancient equivalent. Maybe
it didn¡¯t take as much back then to feel small,
to evoke the sublime.
Go back in time and see it.
As the gray kings tower over me I long for the original,
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the genesis. Was it a sacred space, a sacrificial altar
or bridge of decision? Was it carved, intricate faces
and creatures worn away by the rough hand of wind
or time? Was it painted, brilliant shades of turquoise
and emerald or subdued tones of pearl and coral?
Countless miles to get the stones.
Now my imagination is populated with mighty ships,
rope thicker than my arms constraining the proud stone kings.
They would have sat silently, regally, disdaining their capture.
Upon reaching land their servants would drag them hundreds
of miles to a wild green hill. And although the stone kings
would frown, they would stand with their backs to each other in time.
Walking on dead bodies.
Barrow mounds surround us, housing glittering kings
of old with rusting fragments of gold and sword. These weathered
stone kings stand vigil over flesh and bone captors. Inspiring awe
when earthly kings have sunk into eternal rest below the grinning
stone faces. The fleshy kings completely invisible to me, only a story,
a slight swelling in the ground.
A door to the other side.
The layering of boundaries, the threshold
to something bigger than me slips under my skin.
I want to break through the rope and time
to a silent congregation of menhirs,
holding private and significant counsel.
Archons, gatekeepers to the ark of rock and hidden bone.
Look at me.
Pictures fill the air with digital electricity, and I feel
the aftershock. The masses look through lens, an intentional
barrier far thicker than rope. Stonehenge does not speak. No
whisper of its ancestors. No special melody or whistle
from the rocks when the wind blows. But others speak,
whisper. The people are part and parcel of the stones, and they talk.
One more, one more, one more.
Maybe a reference to just one more photo of squirming children,
or maybe through modern mouths an ancient sound
of encouragement, Stonehenge pulled from another land
and constructed. Irish stones, grouped together
in rings and raised into otherworldly doorways,
like mighty stone bards or prophets.
I don¡¯t know.
Without the strict ropes and rules confining stones
to a written history and commandment,
these gray kings speak.
hobby horses
hobby horses
What do I do with all of these things
which were never mine? Your dirty knees,
bubblegum smile. I was listening
to daddy¡¯s baritone wind pipes
when you captured the tattered tabby cat,
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held her pumpkin body under pale bedsheets
the color of plastic skeleton bones and daddy¡¯s pillow.
Buck tooth smile, ladybug freckles, gecko tails:
you thought they wouldn¡¯t run, abandon their
ends. Shoe strings, your over read picture book,
paint under your arms, caked in your scarecrow hair.
Favorite horse, soft like the living room cushions, stiff
as daddy¡¯s collared shirts and old kitchen dish cloths.
You dragged that pony everywhere, sucking on one
glass eye in all these old photographs I tape
over the windows.
Old hobby horses, muffling dusty light.
mental snapshot of a girl late to class
mental snapshot of a girl late to class
Yours is a million-strand river,
a yellow tributary, kinks
of broken gold eating the sunlight.
Maybe the wind will keep
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those bleached shoe strings
out of laser-point blue eyes.
Your head jerks back like a horse,
paddocked, looking through me
into the puddles of concrete.
My locks do not rival rapids
or waterfalls. Nor do they fall
horizontally like your near-white
flag of surrender,
shoes beating the concrete
as discreetly as possible.
the stump
the stump
From my grandfather¡¯s tin lunch pail
he fingered the stick of dynamite
taken from the mine and now out of sight,
ready to be lit and wail.
He selected his victim with care,
an ancient cathedral-like stump
with defaced roots and twisted rotting bumps;
he planned violently to tear
through the roots and fleshy dry bark
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with liquid fire, black bomb powder.
He waited impatiently to try his power.
The first silence was stark
as he struck the fuse, knowing that
his wife was at church and would not
stop his scheme; he couldn¡¯t be caught.
Fire breathed, he drew back, sat
waiting for the flight of this tree¡¯s
corpse, an explosive funeral,
an image both strange and visceral.
Powder shattered the breeze
when the dynamite blew it up,
the proud stump billowing toward
the lake where two fishermen, who swore
silently, threw enough
of themselves out of their old boat
to avoid strange death from above
as the plundered, airborne stump broke in rough
waves around the floaters.
They plunged back into their small craft,
not bothering to reel in their lines
as they paddled off with oars of white pine.
My grandfather just laughed.
an ode to your umbrella
an ode to your umbrella
As the wind howls it seems to flit away, a haughty teenage girl
afraid of getting her skirt wet. You growl and attempt to shove
her back into formation, an army commander or a similitude.
I offer to share my purple lady, but your faith is unwavering:
this beaten, black, skeletal beauty is yours for the conquering.
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Another gust passes by and she¡¯s no longer a parachute jumper,
but riding in a sled, her world inside and out. The folds of her skirt,
plaited and bowed, unfurl and wring out. Your hair is now wet, rain
streaked across your cheeks almost like tears, but all you see are diamonds.
I tell you it¡¯s not worth it, that she has seen her last. You look at me as though I¡¯ve lost
my mind and clutch her tighter, not necessarily out of
love, but because the wind is growing stronger.
I wonder just how long the two of you can engage
in this violent dance, dysfunctional relationship.
And yet your love, as bent and tattered as it is, seems more alive
than my own.
petrichor darling: five letters to the rain
petrichor darling: five letters to the rain
I.
Yellow blossoms like papier-mach¨¦. You collage all over the sidewalk, sticking to the
bottom of old shoes. I walk under the shelter of a purple umbrella imported from El
Salvador. I did the importing. Somehow I manage to avoid you in multiple countries,
petrichor darling.
II.
Each breath I take makes you laugh as I swim in your downpour, completing lap after
lap in the old city pool they keep threatening to tear down. The swim team and I cross
our fingers that lightning and thunder don¡¯t join you. Three¡¯s a crowd anyway. Your
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clear watermelon seeds mix with the buzz of chlorine. Crown me with droplets, love.
III.
Drowning. My leather shoes are drowning in over six inches of Argentine slosh, your
constant contribution to my first foreign country experience. We have met on streets
with tipsy concrete stones, waiting for buses and subways and my own worn feet. You
curl my hair with fingernail scales, tiptoe across my face and darken my clothing.
Sometimes I wish you would hand wash my laundry, sweetheart.
IV.
Sometimes you can be so vain. Every puddle, crack, and tile cradles you, so many
watery mirrors. In Argentina I would run, jumping into you. You would scatter,
screaming silent curses in a language I couldn¡¯t hear. Every puddle was mine for the
taking, even if you stained shoes and sunbrown legs. Honey, I couldn¡¯t keep myself
away from you.
V.
I walked by a girl today. She sat cross-legged, her eyes closed as you whispered secrets
into her hair, across her cheeks and through her clothing. The intimacy made me want
to look away, you caressing her bun-wound hair, meeting her freckle for freckle. I walk
on, the purple umbrella between us. Petrichor darling, I¡¯m realizing we will never be
more than impulsive lovers.
ode to your garden
ode to your garden
Rain is falling on your garden
¡ªor rather has fell.
I admire your plot, the pine branches
knitting above the quickened dirt.
Your garden is full of shades:
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blurs of subtle star light,
moist farmer¡¯s boots
and the worm¡¯s house.
Puncturing rich soil
are black pots,
hoisting up scarecrow leaves,
spiny thistles clinging to each other
with knobby knuckles.
You started your garden,
With the best of shortcomings
without shovel or reason.
Your garden is a plant cemetery,
circular black tombstones
dry and filled
with dirt paler than the ground.
teddybear leather shoes
teddybear leather shoes
I walk to class in sticky rain.
College sidewalks littered with color,
strawberry-red, limo-black, umbrellas engulfing heads.
Blue catches my eye, slick and curved fabric.
Umbrella man, you hide under
damp umbrella skies.
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Your teddybear leather shoes
peek out from under rainy-day protection.
Where are you headed to?
I am slipping through muddy puddles
of infatuation when a sleek purple umbrella
sails by, owner unknown and moving fast.
Purple wears no shoes, embraces
the water and wet pant legs. He is joined
by peppy lemons-into-lemonade yellow
who holds his thumb and jumps through
his puddles with more eagerness
than a caffeinated sun puppy.
I suppose blue will do.
Wait for me, teddybear shoes.
stars popped in our mouths
stars popped in our mouths
I raked dust through
your darkened hair.
Traced your life lines,
tracks that derailed
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a couple stops back.
I have written all over
your life notes, dark
signature, palimpsest
cross-hatching over
those summer mornings
where the dew burned
bare legs, legs you held
as I embraced bird calls
from the capitol roof.
bleach bautismo
bleach bautismo
I cut it, the long strips of curl shaped like zigzag scissors, dull blonde streaks like
caramel laced through the ends of my almost-but-not-quite-black hair. Surviving
months of swim pool chlorine and hundreds of Cross Country ponytails, I have clung
to this hair for over four years. I don¡¯t know if it defines me, or if I define it. Curly,
definitely curly, although my first year at college has flattened and cooked my
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oceanic rulos into ripples in a lake. While she cuts she talks, this amiga latina with large
hips like a sofa, hair baptized by blonde dye, black wing tips lifting off from the corners
of her dark brown latina eyes. Washing over me, caressing me with the
gentle shhhhhh of Castellano: I understand and I don¡¯t. Who am I to cut off the past?
Who am I not to? She asks what color the new blonde streaks will be: dulce de leche,
vanilla, musky smoke or cracked-leather blonde? I find myself pointing to the
platinum, shiny-as-a-new-vintage-record, don¡¯t-look-it-might-blind-you blonde. Light
as gringa skin dipped in white chocolate, after the summer tan has rubbed off and we
all resemble Snow White a little. That is too light she says, but I will take this plunge,
this smell of bleach, this baptism of fire in Buenos Aires.
sin fish
sin fish
I thought we weren¡¯t allowed to swim
as missionaries. The white bible reminds
us weekly to stay dry, avoid fireworks
and not ride horses. The cobble streets
are submerged, a latino Atlantis
under the mud and ash sea. You hold
bunches of your skirt in brown hands,
the floral fabric thick like curtains.
I can¡¯t see my feet. The water has cut
them off mid-calf. My socks are drunk,
bloated and flabby as they cling
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to my bright white feet, shriveled toes
and toenail scales. My hair drapes around
my face like two latinas gossiping, strands
clinging to each other and spider webbing
across my rubia eyes. I thought
I was used to rain, the torrential tears
of Southeast Missouri,
where nine inches can fall in an hour.
But my companion and I are outside, exposed,
waterlogged and half-drowned.
We jump from sidewalk tiles
to the street, throwing up rainbows
of rain water. Broken cigarette butts float by,
white rafts in the frothy Argentine sea.
Wrappers wrap around my ankles
like stubborn kids or homesick dogs.
I pull my bag closer to me, rub
the white plastic bag encasing my belongings
with slick fingers. Praying the storm
35doesn¡¯t enter my bag, my books and scribbled pages.
I thought we weren¡¯t allowed
to swim as missionaries! I call out,
my voice lost in the dripping oxygen of the city.
latino butter
latino butter
Dulce de leche, smooth and
textured like grains of sand.
The color of rusting pennies or
my cousin¡¯s vivacious hair.
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Shiny as lantern light reflections.
Coating paper-thin panqueques
and off-brand saltines. Nestled
inside facturas, fresh pastries
on proud display in shops,
sin scent and smell jumping
through windows propped open
and doors that refuse to stop spinning.
eighteen chickens in an argentine chapel
eighteen chickens in an argentine chapel
Crates of decapitated chicken bodies,
cocooned in plastic bags.
Post-execution victims
brought to the church for proper burial.
A few haphazard feathers cling to cold,
bubbly skin. My knife unzips
small spinal bones,
cracking this grown egg into
two bodies.
My thumbs press into cracks,
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tiny hearts and livers
collected in a plastic bag.
Blood drips from the counter,
another crate is brought in.
Sometimes the blade snags,
half through half frozen skin,
small feathers caught under my fingernails.
I have already disturbed the privacy
of my current bird, peering between its legs
before going for the heart
and pruny lungs and liver.
My fingers squeeze organ juices,
popping them into a plastic bag
we soon overfill.
Another crate, bodies in the sink:
eighteen chickens.
We fill a trashcan with poultry
as the sink is already past
carrying capacity.
Feathers plastered to the steel sink belly,
a lost heart floundering in
mingled blood and yellow chicken blubber.
In the church courtyard, men add logs
for a religious asado.
latino nightlife
latino nightlife
I jumped the train, a gringa in the south,
only to be greeted by music¡¯s mouth.
The boy was young, his hands worn down, worn brown.
He owned his drum, cacophony of sound.
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The song encased the train and beat over
my chest, making my thick heart punch slower.
Crumbled pesos, bills, and caramelos
overflowed his empty mate vasos.
He beat his life into the drum¡¯s thin rim,
death pulsing beneath hands before it dimmed,
incapable of vanquishing such youth
that even death¡¯s clutching pale hands could sooth.
if they ask you about the comida
if they ask you about the comida
tell them about the empanadas,
filled with crisp beef, jamon y queso,
popular chicken slices or infamous melting raisins.
The outer shell is baked or bathed in snapping oil,
its round ripe body crowned with finger-formed braids.
?Comen hermanitas!
Tell them about the twine noodles.
Shoe string spaghetti, caterpillar rotini,
sombrero ravioli and fish-fin campanelle.
Cascades of meat sauce, milky-white sauce,
just-oil-and-not-really sauce at all.
Mothers of Argentina, let them eat pasta.
Tell them about the asado,
steaming and whispering on the backyard fire,
brought in on cookie sheets, slabs of famous
Argentine cow and full-moon slices of squash.
La mesa crowded with small herds of bread,
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baby baguettes scattered with no shepherd
as small dogs bite knees under the table.
Or tell them about the impromptu ice cream tuppers,
topped off with rice, Neapolitan vegetables
(orange, green, yellow), overflowing with edge-of-the-city,
living-in-a-train-car asado. Argentine BBQ,
cooked by Peruvians
living on the edge of the city¡¯s mind.
Don¡¯t tell them about the fish heads,
googly-eyed, rebel sardines in plastic containers.
They make a quick trip into the apartment
trashcan, rubber mouths still gaping.
How could you do this to me?
You might mention the mangoes,
cut into grid squares, gift from a vegan elder.
Juice running like the Euphrates and Pison
out of the Garden of Eden, down arms and chins.
Suitcase-leather mango skin, bruised green with yellow and purple.
Fleshy orange fruit eaten in the capilla Belgrano.
It is essential you discuss the green rice,
dressed in drizzled Peruvian sauce.
A shapely chicken leg perches on the edge
of the plate, infused with vegetables or envy
or latino love.
You won¡¯t need to tell them about the alfajores:
all kinds. Three-for-ten pesos.
Evening-dress Havanna, black-soul chocolate showing.
Sweet-fanged Milka, queen of indulgence and sugary smiles.
Jorgelin, the Micky D¡¯s of alfajores, omnipresent.
Big-city-gangster Cachafaz,
representative-for-the-common-folk Guaymallen,
architectural-wonder-three-layers-thick Terrabusi
and the soaring eagle Aguila.
Fancy ways of saying Argentine love in slick packages,
empty shells coating the streets,
whispering Te amo.
preparing peruvian lomo saltado
preparing peruvian lomo saltado
Amiga, unfazed, hacks away with her small machete. Her ax peels the slivers of onion
bark away from the bulbous tree, where they fall like pine needles, mingling with her
pumpkin seed tears. Cutting through this onion is cutting through her, thin lines of
mascara streaking down her face, black vine tendrils. Her face a brown canvas, lost in
this forest, this arena of food. The slab in front of me is cold, numbing my fingers and
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rejecting my blade. I am fighting with a jellyfish, jello de carne, pink marble slab.
Amiga is offering up her kindling, tossing the small ivory pieces onto the stove, mixing
with golden sap: a pond of oil. As the onion slices crackle in liquid fire she turns to
face me, me with this sword, hacking away at this faceless opponent, the metal
reflecting off his salmon-pink armor. No I do not need help, let me face my demons
alone! Fingernails dig into this fleshy hill, steel penetrating the carne: I leave carnage in
my wake. Rosy chunks, fallen petals are strewn across the wooden chopping block. I
lay down my knife, turn away. Let them bury the dead in round metal caskets, ringed
by flame.
scrubbed limpio
scrubbed limpio
Filling the daisy-yellow bucket to the brim,
spilling over onto pale cream tiles. But I
am not mopping the bathroom floor. Pour
the hottest water you can find into my field
of daisies. Bubbling. Good, you haven¡¯t forgotten
the soap, pink flakes like pencil shavings, melting
into my hot, yellow tub. No, we don¡¯t use rocks, metal
teeth that look like kitchen appliances. We will not go down
to the river, balance jars of water on our heads, wrapped in bolts of bright fabric.
This is Argentina, not even la provencia,
but the heart of a smoking city. When the suds
are hot enough to burn your hands, it¡¯s ready. Are
you sure those clothes are dirty? This is not America
Norte, they will not be clean and dry in a couple hours.
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I thought that shirt looked clean¡ªyou made the right choice.
Now, fill our flower bucket full of tops, bottoms, skirts and billowing blouses.
Wiggle in socks and tank tops.
That¡¯s right, watch the floor dance
with water droplets. Why did we fill
the bucket so full? Tradition mija! Now wait.
We have twenty minutes before lights out. No
time to think of food, laundry! Yes, go get the bucket.
Reach into gray filmy water. Dig for one piece at a time,
bobbing for apples. Twist on the faucet. Don¡¯t splash me. Grip the shirt with both
hands.
Wring. Rinse. Squeeze. Repeat.
Work your wrists. I know it hurts.
Scrub out the street dust, nightly star
fragments that got caught in your clothes.
Harder, hermanita. Finger it, any suds left?
Bubbles, bad sign. Back under the kitchen waterfall.
Drowning, rising. Cling, pull, stretch. Remember, no water.
Your laundry should not cry. That looks good enough. Smells like soap.
Feels like slick hair after the shower.
Take it outside, to the balcony two people
cannot comfortably stand in at the same time.
The sky is too cloudy to see the darkness. Street
lights. Take laundry pins. Two per piece of clothing.
Hope it doesn¡¯t rain, or how will they ever dry? Pray for hot
wind, strong enough to stiffen clothing without ripping down the pins.
One. I have finished one shirt.
Wrists red, tender. Hands sore, as though
I¡¯ve been plucking, shucking corn all day.
The yellow bucket is smiling a gap-toothed smile.
the hospital looks like
the hospital looks like
a hotel one too cheto to actually stay in Who would have known such a thing existed in
Argentina Rain hovers outside my umbrella is purple and there is a small green tube in
my battered bag Yes I¡¯ve been asked to bring my own tube for this ear surgery should
this worry me Brought into a room with a man with sharp glasses who asks me to read
papers in Castellano signing away my life will I wake up after the operation I sign my
life in dull blue ink with a ballpoint and they take me into a locker room I am handing
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the lady my tube If I hadn¡¯t remembered would she have asked What would they have
put in my ear instead I am expected to put on a paper sheet dress glasses locked into
the green metal box I am now blind and they push me down into a wheelchair I am
still conscious but still they drive me as though the end is near Everyone is a blur
unfocused syllables and phrases walking all around me For once in Argentina I¡¯m
reminded that I¡¯m usually short as doctors and nurses hombres y mujeres strutting
above me I¡¯m on wheels plunging neckline barefoot dignity left in that mint-colored
locker too The operation table meets at my chest and the doctor is laughing he might
be thirty as he asked me to scale the table and extend my wrist for the blessed IV I
land on the table pale and distressed as a riverless fish Needle lodged in tough left wrist
skin I am pulling down on my paper dress sterile lights like motionless strobe above he
is still laughing and wiping his glasses I miss my own lights out
bars curl around lit tres
bars curl around lit trees
frosted with flame light.
A dark man, shifting olive eyes
simmering on low alcohol.
His shadows sit across a wooden bench
peering through bottles like
cracked lens. The friend at our side
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feels the lining of his pockets.
I know you want to leave¡ª
my white skin is burning in this
latino flicker. We enter the garden,
your brown face, his brown face.
The dark man is speaking, knitting
his mother¡¯s murder feet away,
her absent body a heavy quilt
tucked around my thighs.
My words sharpen knives and
load guns, hold candle wicks
in holy hands. You look at me
as though I¡¯ve wrapped the table
in aluminum foil, the glow blinding
their green bottle lenses.
casa y cuarto
casa y cuarto
La casa Pucheta. Wooden, cluttered table.
White creamy cheese with thick slabs
of shaved jelly. Crackers, dulce de leche
covering. Small black and white dog
at our knees, in our laps. Bookshelves
leaning into conversations. Sharp tang
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of nail polish, thin layers stacking up
like books on the couch-turned bed.
Bowl of fruit, bananas and manzanas
and mandarinas. Plastic table cloth,
rose patterns intertwining. Tuppers
in steel belly sink. Pizza slices during
noche de hogar, pale crust like
white missionary fingers. Pinpoints
of green olives in homemade sauce.
Cards, balls, rubix cube. Photos and braids.
Timbres and viandas, take home dinners.
Noodles boiling on low, murmuring like
love. Christmas tree candle, knitted slippers,
snow globe and delicate animal figurine. Home.
kidding me
kidding me
Not like on google maps from Missouri to Utah,
but on a taped-up piece of paper with rippled highlights
and a dizzy six-piece grid, Argentina begins all at once,
a red list of tangled names from people avoiding
or feeding us. Calles and streets.
¡ªCual street, my companion says in her Latina Spanglish.
¡ªZalaya! I say, smoothing our area map.
I remember the children, brown and running like wild horses.
I forgot the smell, a cacophony of Peruvian cocinas.
I forgot the doors, each thin, pocked with holes like cheese swiss.
I forgot how small the ¡°houses¡± are.
¡ªCan we share a message?
¡ªNo, gracias.
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[Knock, wait, next door.]
¡ªPodemos compartir un mensaje?
¡ªTodav¨ªa no.
[Knock, wait, next door.]
¡ªCan we¡
¡ªSi Dios quiere!
But the young girl. That I don¡¯t remember overlooking
until we invite her to listen.
We¡¯ve crossed Rivadavia, 25 de Mayo, Mansilla and Sarmiento,
belting out the hymns we know. ¡°O Creaciones del Senor,¡±
your favorite street song, seconded only by ¡°Tengo Gozo
en mi Alma Hoy.¡± We alter the words, singing Tengo hambre
en mi alma hoy and remember the large Elder who loved to sing
about la semilla que hoy sembramos.
But crossing the train tracks, we don¡¯t feel like harmonizing.
La gente rough and jagged, smoking drugs and stray dogs
curled at their feet, the bottom of our feet sweaty like bars of soap,
circles of trash curled into the metal tracks and pebbles;
¡°que bueno¡±¡ªel tren will send them skyward like fall leaves.
Even more graffiti-showered walls grappling with pale English words, more fences and
more cobblestone streets or tile sidewalks with women mopping the concrete and
hosing down the tiles. We¡¯ll visit Hermana Mansilla, eat Papa la Huanca¨ªna, Lomo
Saltado, Aj¨ª de Gallina, Ceviche, y m¨¢s.
I know when I fly home everything will melt into English. Vamos, says my companion
here; at home they¡¯ll say Let¡¯s go.
Me esta cargando, the Portenos proclaim. There they¡¯ll say
You¡¯ve got to be kidding me.
bestie
bestie
Multiple hours cocooned in third-rate airplane seats,
knees knocking into neighbors, arriving while my brother¡¯s
luggage was leaving, all I wanted was to sleep until someone
old and distinguished handed me a diploma.
The next morning sunlight was catching up with
my sanity, hair raked back like crumbling leaves,
carting bodies to the white home in the green,
prepared to excavate for my college dinosaurs.
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Breakfast has always seemed like an innocent meal,
until the metaphorical bacon was fried and eaten
and you arrived, almost by accident, a familiar stranger
willing to dig and carry years of accidental accumulation¡ª
mostly books, The Republic of Poets and Tracy K. Smith
and The Lord of the Rings and All the Light We Cannot See
filling your waiting arms as I apologize profusely
for the weight of my English degrees. You just smile.
And then I¡¯m rising from the basement and being
ushered to the light at the end of the tunnel,
a car more like a space shuttle or rocket than
a traditional mode of transportation.
And although it seems at odds with your gentle eyes
and runaway black hair, you suddenly become an astronaut,
catapulting us into the milky highway at eternal speeds
that sear my eyes shut with the rapid contest against light.
I always secretly wanted to traverse the solar skies with someone like you.
two rings
two rings
After work, when my limbs hang heavy like pendulums
and my feet sink into the earth¡¯s stone foundation,
you pick me up, pick me out, pick my brain, earnestly
hoping for a hilly, mountainous hike previously planned.
And although the sludge of weariness dangles from
my wrists like Graff Diamonds Hallucination,
you unearth smiles like precious potter¡¯s clay
and soon we¡¯re slipping through the rocky trees,
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my hand hooked to yours¡ªlike two pins hanging from a line,
determined to hold the same billowy white sheet upright.
The sun is dancing in the crests and platters of the mountains,
fracturing in your eyes that seem to be waltzing away with me.
I don¡¯t notice the baby blue shirt with that clean laundry smell
that reminds me of you or a face cleaner than cut diamonds.
Other hill billies trot through the crust of autumn, a drifting crush
of people who seem to prance under your skin. If only the woods
were as lonely as the forests in fairy tales and picture books.
We gossip in lover¡¯s language, steal sips from peak springs,
searching purposely for the fall colors as we fall for each other.
Arches of shattering, bursting fire color signal our arrival to you.
And as I murmur at the marvel, my back to you,
you spring, on edge for a turn, hardly capable of waiting
for sight to cement into realization as firm as the rock nestled
in black velvet.
laie chicks
laie chicks
This humidity looks good on you,
crisp and curled like the welcome leaves
encircling our necks and hearts.
I never knew so many chickens had crossed the sea
to lounge and loiter in America¡¯s stolen paradise.
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The ocean roils and spits liquid flames,
rattling tiny ocean crabs like bobbleheads
in little grass skirts, eyes poking above the sand.
We steal kisses like swimmers steal breaths
and surfers steal waves and wind steals whisps
of my long hair when we cruise through the island¡¯s
night, sweet bug fiddles matching us in pitch.
Waves slap me silly, push bursts of silty sand
into my skin as I cling to you, a red and white
lifesaver six feet tall
Let¡¯s not go back.
blue eyes
blue eyes
The universe is surprisingly dark,
ringed by gold planets and stray stars
that bump in the silly blackness of space.
If I look hard enough I see myself staring
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back, gasping at vibrant shades of ocean,
peacock royalty, bursting berries, ebony chunks
more valuable than my writer¡¯s wallet.
Suddenly, the universe bats curled eyelashes
like royal sea waves and lets loose a cry
to shake the foundations of this world
and it¡¯s many, many neighbors.
The universe is waking up,
and her eyes are midnight blue.