^{They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.
            —Mexican Proverb}

I was born among the bodies. I was hurried
forward, and sealed a thin life for myself.

I have shortened my name, and walk with
a limp. I place pebbles in milk and offer

them to my children when there is nothing
else. We can not live on cold blood alone.

In a dream, I am ungendered, and the moon
is just the moon having a thought of itself.

I am a wolf masked in the scent of its prey
and I am driven—hawk like—to the dark

center of things. I have grasped my eager
heart in my own talons. I am made of fire,

and all fire passes through me. I am made
of smoke and all smoke passes through me.

Now the bodies are just calcified gravity,
built up and broken down over the years.

Somewhere there are phantoms having their
own funerals over and over again. The same

scene for centuries. The same moon rolling
down the gutter of the same sky. Somewhere

they place a door at the beginning of a field
and call it property. Somewhere, a tired man

won’t let go of his dead wife’s hand. God
is a performing artist working only with

light and stone. Death is just a child come to
take us by the hand, and lead us gently away.

Fear is the paralyzing agent, the viper that
swallows us living and whole. And the devil,

wears a crooked badge, multiplies everything
by three. You—my dark friend. And me.

^{for Daniel; after Pablo}

It was five o’clock when paper handkerchiefs descended

over the ocean’s surge—

              one ocean varnished by oil in the morning, fish under the surge’s blades.

My country, you whimpered under fog. I awoke to the tender

sound of seashells on the radio.

I knelt by myself and listened. Your flat skeleton, large skeleton,

would group at your back.

Come, you murmured over canned goods. Come. I will tell you

everything—

clay seeps onto roots, roots drawn by salt, roots crowned

by trees. The cords unravel from the flesh of trees, unravel

by the storm shutters. Come.

See the roads brim with red poppy, roads tracked

by green serpents

                                                                       ((a la víbora, víbora / de la mar, de la mar)) 

I tendered nine eggs before the ignorant lion 

of exile, who nodded.

At five in the morning, everything seemed to be made of lime—

one torso shrouded by magnolia, one torso under vulgar peal 

of grey morgues, and the fish.

^{para mi abuela en la isla}

A hurricane destroyed your sense of home
and all you wanted was to pack your bags
in dead of night, still waving mental flags,
forgetting the nation is a syndrome.
All that’s left of the sea in you is foam,
the coastline's broken voice and all its crags.
You hear the governor admit some snags
were hit, nada, mere blips in the biome,
nothing that private equity can’t fix
once speculators pour into San Juan
to harvest the bad seed of an idea.
She tells you Santa Clara in ’56
had nothing on the brutal San Ciprián,
and yes, your abuela’s named María.

Thoughts of Katrina and the Superdome,
el Caribe mapped with blood and sandbags,
displaced, diasporic, Spanglish hashtags,
a phantom tab you keep on Google Chrome,
days of hunger and dreams of honeycomb.
Are souls reborn or worn thin like old rags?
The locust tree still stands although it sags,
austere sharks sequence the island’s genome
and parrots squawk survival politics
whose only power grid is the damp dawn.
There is no other way, no panacea.
Throw stuff at empire’s walls and see what sticks
or tear down the walls you were standing on?
Why don’t you run that question by María?

Beyond the indigenous chromosome,
your gut genealogy’s in chains and gags,
paraded through the colonies’ main drags
and left to die. So when you write your tome
please note: each word must be a catacomb,
must be a sepulcher and must be a
cradle in some sort of aporía
where bodies draw on song as guns are drawn,
resilient, silent h in huracán.
Your ache-song booms ashore. Ashé, María.

We were lost in the plains,
beautiful and ordinary.
Sunflowers in the fields,
seeds of fallen stars,
standing tall; deeply 
rooted in this land.

I’ve admired how our flowers
shine, grasping towards the sky,
beyond the prairie grass, anchored
down to earth; mimicking the sun.

When a gardener plants the 
seeds of Helianthus, they are 
performing magic. Raising
stars out of the dust where
buzzing planets circle, half 
red moons set, and swarming 
comets float in orange comas.

I’ve always felt that late at night, 
in the bed of a truck, in a Kansas field, 
we were at the center of this universe.

And I was exactly where I should be,
amongst the flowers, not below.

For every unexpected illness that required medical insurance,
every second-trimester miscarriage, every chaos unemployment
caused, every looming eviction, every arrest warrant gone
unanswered, the women in my family made promesas to plaster
cast statues worshipped in overcrowded apartments with rum
poured over linoleum, nine-day candles coughing black soot
until the wick surrendered, Florida water perfuming doorways
and the backs of necks.

Promesas: barters/contracts with a God they didn’t vow to
change for but always appeased/ bowls of fruit/ paper bags filled
with coconut candy and caserolas de ajiaco/ left at busy intersections,
an oak tree in High bridge park, the doorway of the 34th precinct,
and when mar pacifico and rompe saraguey refused to grow on
Washington Heights windowsills, the youngest became part of
the trade.

Unsullied and unaware: cousin Mari pissed about having to dress
in green and red for twenty-one days to keep Tío Pablo out of jail/
Luisito scratching at an anklet made of braided corn silk to help
Tía Lorna find a new job/ and my hair not to be cut until Papi’s
tumor was removed.

Gathered in tight buns or sectioned pigtails, falling long past my
waist when asymmetrical bobs were in fashion, unaware my crown
had the necessary coercion to dislodge a mass from a colon, I grabbed
my older brother’s clippers, ran thirsty blades across my right temple
to the back of my ear, massaged the softness that emerged as strands
surrendered on bathroom tiles. My desire to mimic freestyle icons,
whose albums my cousins and I scratched on old record players,
wagered against Papi’s large intestine.

My unsteady hand: a fist
in the face of God.

We are first to cover our hearts
with our hands, sing “My Country,
’Tis of Thee,” and wear la Americana flag shorts.
We swap Medalla for Budweiser. Go to Shoney’s
and order the all-you-can eat breakfast. No one
cares if we waste food as long as we leave a decent
tip and speak quietly. Leave La Isla’s conversaciones
at the kitchen table. We are encouraged to buy the biggest
trucks and waste gas. Take over the road and parking
spaces. People make way when they see us. What kind
of horsepower do you get? They admire strength.
We are told not to ask those back home to send us
pique and café. We should tamper our tongues
and get the mild options. We go to Starbucks
and get wild concoctions like unicorn berry frappuccino.
Everything tastes too sweet. But this, they say,
is the American way. Sugar. Sugar. More sugar.
Our coworkers just go ahead and call us JL
and AE because they butcher our real names
Josefa Luz and Agapito Efraín. Everyone goes by some
initials anyway, they claim. Look at JFK and MLK.
Juanito is Buddy. Everyone here gets a nickname too.
We are forgetting the cuentos about the iguana thief.
Now, it’s blah, blah, blah about parking as wide
as bedrooms. Rows and rows of different types
of water in stores. Community meetings with five
different types of cake and strawberry swirl ice cream.
Everything is so sweet, but they give us plates
swathed in foil. It is the American way.
Some signs say English only, no Spanish allowed.
There is the look to keep our rolling rrrrrs to ourselves.
Pronounce rice so that it doesn’t sound like fries.
Remember it’s soup or salad (not super salad).
And delete the word focus from our vocabulary
(it always sounds like fuck us). The waiter smiles
when we leave a nice tip. Because tipping is the American
way. Please come again. Take some mints. Here are the toothpicks.
Goodies on the way out. How nice. How American.
The junk mail is bigger and brighter. The flyer
from the neighborhood dentist pops orange in chili pepper
font with promises to make teeth white, white, white!
The flyer comes with a coupon, a special, something
on sale. How can it be any more American than that?

In this neighborhood you’d better learn to fight,
my father says. Real schooling’s from hard knocks.                       
Books won’t save your life. He knows I’d rather write     

and read. I don’t talk back. His love is no birthright.
Instead, I bluff, act tough. He teaches me to box.    
In this neighborhood you’d better learn to fight,   

he says, or you’ll be prey; better tough Israelite                
than studious Black Hat, defenseless Orthodox.
Books won’t save your life. I know you’d rather write.                

Next day was Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.               
“Hey Jew-Boy,” some kids jeered (as if I wore ear-locks).                      
I was no Maccabee. Bluff called, I could not fight.  

I came to battered, bruised, but had no appetite                 
for bloodshed or revenge. Instead, I walked for blocks,
prayed books would save my life. I swore someday I’d write      

these lines. And now I have. We never kissed goodnight
yet every poem I wrote, he saved. The paradox:  
a bullet stopped his life; lead plug he could not fight.         
I escape the neighborhood with every word I write.