I’m not brave because I leave gently. It’s not mercy

when the kill lives serving self. I told my therapist

I’m through with villain portraiture but I keep leaving promises

to wilt. Even this is vanity—garden of self-importance. I’m rambling.

What I mean to say: Love is larger than declaration. & chrysanthemum

don’t thrive in starless night. Who am I to light the sky? I know, no one

loves to end any more than we live to die, but I’m learning not to clutch

the ground so fierce. To trust life is a series of orbits;

worship mercy in routine. I know this part like lost love:

gripping sheets, curling toes, tongue feels righteous but don’t fill

empty space. All hollow goings. Carving fresh cavities to become

known. Nimble fingers, sigh & sweat. Fill me full

of hope. After, glow

again fading.

Back to wilting,

gentle kill.

You up?

I was so willing to pull a page out of my notebook, a day, several bright days and live them as if I was only alive, thirsty, timeless, young enough, to do this one more time, to dare to have nothing so much to lose and to feel that potential dying of the self in the light as the only thing I thought that was spiritual, possible and because I had no other way to call that mind, I called it poetry, but it was flesh and time and bread and friends frightened and free enough to want to have another day that way, tear another page.

i’m confident that the absolute dregs of possibility for this society,
the sugary coffee mound at the bottom of this cup,
our last best hope that when our little bit of assigned plasma implodes 
it won’t go down as a green mark in the cosmic ledger,
lies in the moment when you say hello to a bus driver 
and they say it back—

when someone holds the door open for you 
and you do a little jog to meet them where they are—

walking my dog, i used to see this older man 
and whenever I said good morning, 
he replied ‘GREAT morning’—

in fact, all the creative ways our people greet each other
may be the icing on this flaming trash cake hurtling through the ether. 

when the clerk says how are you 
and i say ‘i’m blessed and highly favored’ 

i mean my toes have met sand, and wiggled in it, a lot. 
i mean i have laughed until i choked and a friend slapped my back.
i mean my niece wrote me a note: ‘you are so smart + intellajet’

i mean when we do go careening into the sun, 

i’ll miss crossing guards ushering the grown folks too, like ducklings 
and the lifeguards at the community pool and
men who yelled out the window that they’d fix the dent in my car, 
right now! it’d just take a second—

and actually everyone who tried to keep me alive, keep me afloat, 
and if not unblemished, suitably repaired.

but I won’t feel too sad about it,
becoming a star 

looking over the plums, one by one
lifting each to his eyes and
turning it slowly, a little earth,
checking the smooth skin for pockmarks
and rot, or signs of unkind days or people,
then sliding them gently into the plastic.
whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm
into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire
before realizing the danger of bruising
and lifting them back out, cradling them
in the crook of his elbow until
something harder could take that bottom space.
I knew him from his hat, one of those
fine porkpie numbers they used to sell
on Roosevelt Road. it had lost its feather but
he had carefully folded a dollar bill
and slid it between the ribbon and the felt
and it stood at attention. he wore his money.
upright and strong, he was already to the checkout
by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name
and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand,
looked at me quizzically for a moment before
remembering my face. he smiled. well
hello young lady
       hello, so chilly today
       should have worn my warm coat like you
yes so cool for August in Chicago
       how are things going for you
oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt
it goes, it goes.

i stand before you to say 
that today i walked home
& caught the light through
the fence & it was so golden
i wanted to cry & i lifted 
my right hand to say thank
you god for the sun thank 
you god for a chain link fence
& all the shoes that fit into
the chain link fence so that
we might get lifted god thank
you & i just wanted to dance
& it feels good to have food
in your belly & it feels good
to be home even when home
is the space between metal
shapes & still we are golden
& a man who wore the walk
of hard grounds & lost days
came toward me in the street
& said ‘girl what a beautiful 
day’ & i said yes, testify
& i walked on & from some
place a horn rose, an organ,
a voice, a chorus, here to tell
you that we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead we are not dead we are
not dead we are not dead 
we are not dead we are not
dead 
yet

Today I will praise.

I will praise the sun

For showering its light

On this darkened vessel.

I will praise its shine.

Praise the way it wraps

My skin in ultraviolet ultimatums

Demanding to be seen.

I will lift my hands in adoration

Of how something so bright

Could be so heavy.

I will praise the ground

That did not make feast of these bones.

Praise the casket

That did not become a shelter for flesh.

Praise the bullets

That called in sick to work.

Praise the trigger

That went on vacation.

Praise the chalk

That did not outline a body today.

Praise the body

For still being a body

And not a headstone.

Praise the body,

For being a body and not a police report

Praise the body

For being a body and not a memory

No one wants to forget.

Praise the memories.

Praise the laughs and smiles

You thought had been evicted from your jawline

Praise the eyes

For seeing and still believing.

For being blinded from faith

But never losing their vision

Praise the visions.

Praise the prophets

Who don’t profit off of those visions.

Praise the heart

For housing this living room of emotions

Praise the trophy that is my name

Praise the gift that is my name.

Praise the name that is my name

Which no one can plagiarize or gentrify

Praise the praise.

How the throat sounds like a choir.

The harmony in your tongue lifts

Into a song of adoration.

Praise yourself

For being able to praise.

For waking up,

When you had every reason not to.

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to 
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a 
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have 
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman 
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night, 
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological 
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old 
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it 
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the 
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you 
were born at a good time. Because you were able 
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And 
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, 
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, 
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

It is a mild day in the suburbs
Windy, a little gray. If there is
sunlight, it enters through the
kitchen window and spreads
itself, thin as a napkin, beside
the coffee cup, pie on a plate

What am I describing?
I am describing a dream
in which nobody has died

These are our mothers:
your mother and mine
It is an empty day; everyone
else is gone. Our mothers
are sitting in red chairs
that look like metal hearts
and they are smoking
Your mother is wearing
sandals and a skirt. My 
mother is thinking about 
dinner. The bread, the meat

Later, there will be
no reason to remember
this, so remember it
now: a safe day. Time
passes into dim history.

And we are their babies
sleeping in the folds of
the wind. Whatever our 
chances, these are the 
women. Such small talk
before life begins

for the cloak of despair thrown over our bright & precious
corners but tell that to the lone bird who did not get the memo
dizzy & shouting into the newly unfamiliar absence of morning
light from atop a sagging branch outside my window—a branch

which, too, was closer to the sky before falling into the chorus
line of winter’s relentless percussion all of us, victims to this flimsy math 
of hours I was told there was a cure for this. I was told the darkness
would surrender its weapons & retreat I know of no devils who evict themselves

to the point of permanence. and still, on the days I want
to be alive the sunlight leaves me stunned like a kiss
from someone who has already twirled away by the time my eyes open 
on the days I want to be alive I tell myself I deserve a marching band

or at least a string section to announce my arrival above
ground for another cluster of hours. if not a string section, at least one
drummer & a loud-voiced singer well versed in what might move me
to dance. what might push my hand through a crowded sidewalk

towards a woman who looks like a woman from my dreams
which means nothing if you dream as I do, everyone a hazy quilt
of features only familiar enough to lead me through a cavern of longing
upon my waking & so I declare on the days I want to be alive I might drag

my drummer & my singer to your doorstep & ask you to dance
yes, you, who also survived the groaning machinery of darkness
you who, despite this, do not want to be perceived in an empire
awash with light in the sinning hours & we will dance

until our joyful heaving flows into breathless crying, the two often pouring
out of the chest’s orchestra at the same tempo, siblings in their arrival & listen,
there will be no horns to in the marching band of my survival.

the preacher says there will be horns at the gates of the apocalypse & I believed even myself
the angel of death as a boy, when I held my lips to a metal mouthpiece & blew out a tune
about autumn & I am pressing your ear to my window & asking if you can hear the deep
moans of the anguished bird & how the wind bends them into what sounds like a child
clumsily pushing air into a trumpet for the first time & there’s the joke:

only a fool believes that the sound at the end of the world would be sweet.

from the humid brick building below my humid brick building, a woman
bellows at the pizza man. who, it seems, threw no cheese atop the crust
& its red river of sauce because—as he shouts above the sirens of State
Street & the growing crowd lined outside his shop—it is Friday night
& he is woefully short on mozzarella & there are far better pizza options
on every corner of this city, overpriced & tonight bursting at the seams
with lonely people who will seek the warmth spilling from the edges
of a cardboard box & onto their laps & into their fingers on the walk
back to a newly empty apartment. I love the heat for how it separates
the desire for touch from the practicality of it. If it gets too hot to fuck,
like it did for mookie & tina, then we’re all on our own sinking islands
anyway. there is no cheese in this town anymore & what could be worse
than the fraction of a dream behind every door you crawl to. it is friday & surely
some of my people are praising the fresh coin in their bank accounts & what
a tragedy to spend it on a half-finished freedom & the argument below has poured
out into the streets & the waiting masses & I imagine this is no longer over
cheese but over every mode of unfulfilled promise. the cluster of sins still stuck to a body
fresh from the waters of baptism. the parent who must dig a grave for their youngest
child. from below, a man yells there are only three ingredients. you can’t even get that right.
isn’t it funny, to vow that you will love someone until you are dead.

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good 
mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something 
about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself 
but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown 
& lord knows I have been called by what I look like 
more than I have been called by what I actually am & 
I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this 
exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning 
something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything 
worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive 
to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather 
clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent 
heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, 
you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

Death chase me down
death’s way
uproot a breast
infest the lymph nodes
crack a femur
rip morale
to shreds

Death chase me down
death’s way
tilt me off-kilter
crutch me slow
nobody show me
how
you make a cup of coffee
with no hands

Death chase me down
death’s way
awkward in sunlight
single in a double bed at night
and hurtling out of mind
and out of sight

Don’t chase me down
down
down
death chasing me
death’s way

And I’m not done
I’m not about to blues my dues or beg

I am about to teach myself
to fly slip slide flip run
fast as I need to
on one leg

I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain
or happiness
like candles lighting the entire soft lace
of the air
around the full length of your hair/a shower
organized by God
in brown and auburn
undulations luminous like particles
of flame
But now I do
retrieve an afternoon of apricots
and water interspersed with cigarettes
and sand and rocks
we walked across:
                        How easily you held
my hand
beside the low tide
of the world

Now I do
relive an evening of retreat
a bridge I left behind
where all the solid heat
of lust and tender trembling
lay as cruel and as kind
as passion spins its infinite
tergiversations in between the bitter
and the sweet

Alone and longing for you
now I do

^{Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto,
President of The People’s Republic of Angola: 1976}

1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
                                     Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:
fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or 
condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?
Shall we pick a number? 
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

I must become a menace to my enemies.

3
And if I 
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
                   terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries

And if I 
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
                   wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.
I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.

HEY

C’MON
COME OUT

WHEREVER YOU ARE

WE NEED TO HAVE THIS MEETING
AT THIS TREE

AIN’ EVEN BEEN
PLANTED
YET

^{for Sally Sellers}

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near

It’s a journey . . . that I propose . . . I am not the guide . . . nor technical assistant . . . I will be your fellow passenger . . .

Though the rail has been ridden . . . winter clouds cover . . . autumn’s exuberant quilt . . . we must provide our own guide-posts . . .

I have heard . . . from previous visitors . . . the road washes out sometimes . . . and passengers are compelled . . . to continue groping . . . or turn back . . . I am not afraid . . .

I am not afraid . . . of rough spots . . . or lonely times . . . I don’t fear . . . the success of this endeavor . . . I am Ra . . . in a space . . . not to be discovered . . . but invented . . .

I promise you nothing . . . I accept your promise . . . of the same we are simply riding . . . a wave . . . that may carry . . . or crash . . .

It’s a journey . . . and I want . . . to go . . .

They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating

Dead Puerto Ricans
Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans
Who never took a coffee break
from the ten commandments
to KILL KILL KILL
the landlords of their cracked skulls
and communicate with their latino souls

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
From the nervous breakdown streets
where the mice live like millionaires
and the people do not live at all
are dead and were never alive
Juan
died waiting for his number to hit
Miguel
died waiting for the welfare check
to come and go and come again
Milagros
died waiting for her ten children
to grow up and work
so she could quit working
Olga
died waiting for a five dollar raise
Manuel
died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead
so he could get a promotion

It is a long ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
where they were buried
First the train
and then the bus
and the cold cuts for lunch
and the flowers
that will be stolen
when visiting hours are over
Is very expensive
Is very expensive
But they understand
Their parents understood
Is a long non-profit ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Dreaming
Dreaming about queens
Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood
Puerto Ricanless scene
Thirty-thousand-dollar home
The first spics on the block
Proud to belong to a community
of gringos who want them lynched
Proud to be a long distance away
from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train—
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent

Juan 
died dreaming about a new car
Miguel
died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs
Milagros
died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico
Olga 
died dreaming about real jewelry
Manuel
died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes

They all died
like a hero sandwich dies
in the garment district
at twelve o’ clock in the afternoon
social security number to ashes
union dues to dust

They knew
they were born to weep
and keep the morticians employed
as long as they pledge allegiance
to the flag that wants them destroyed
They saw their names listed
in the telephone directory of destruction
They were train to turn
the other cheek by newspapers
that misspelled mispronounced
and misunderstood their names
and celebrated when death came
and stole their final laundry ticket

They were born dead
and they died dead
Is time
to visit sister lopez again
the number one healer
and fortune card dealer
in Spanish Harlem
She can communicate
with your late relatives
for a reasonable fee
Good news is guaranteed
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable—
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
If the right number we hit
all our problems will split
and we will visit your grave
on every legal holiday
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
We know your spirit is able
Death is not dumb and disable
RISE TABLE RISE TABLE

Juan
Miguel 
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Hating fighting and stealing
broken windows from each other
Practicing a religion without a roof
The old testament
The new testament
according to the gospel
of the internal revenue
the judge and jury and executioner
protector and bill collector

Secondhand shit for sale
Learn how to say Como Esta Usted
and you will make a fortune
They are dead
They are dead
and will not return from the dead
until they stop neglecting
the art of their dialogue—
for broken english lessons
to impress their mister goldsteins—
who keep them employed
as lavaplatos porters messenger boys
factory workers maids stock clerks
shipping clerks assistant mailroom
assistant, assistant assistant
to the assistant’s assistant
assistant lavaplatos and automatic
artificial smiling doormen
for the lowest wages of the ages
and rages when you demand a raise
because is against the company policy
to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS

Juan
died hating Miguel because Miguel’s
used car was in better running condition
than his used car
Miguel
died hating Milagros because Milagros
had a color television set
and he could not afford one yet
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers
Manuel
died hating all of them
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
and Olga
because they all spoke broken english
more fluently than he did

And how they are together
in the main lobby of the void
Addicted to silence
Off limits to the wind
Confined to worm supremacy
in long island cemetery
This is the groovy hereafter
the protestant collection box
was talking so loud and proud about

Here lies Juan
Here lies Miguel
Here lies Milagros
Here lies Olga
Here lies Manuel
who died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Always broke
Always owing
Never knowing
that they are beautiful people
Never knowing
the geography of their complexion

PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE
If only they
had turned off the television
and tune into their own imaginations
If only they
had used the white supremacy bibles
for toilet paper purpose
and make their latino souls
the only religion of their race
If only they
had return to the definition of the sun
after the first mental snowstorm
on the summer of their senses
If only they
had kept their eyes open
at the funeral of their fellow employees
who came to this country to make a fortune
and were buried without underwears

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
will right now be doing their own thing
where beautiful people sing
and dance and work together
where the wind is a stranger
to miserable weather conditions
where you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
Aqui
Se Habla Espanol
all the time
Aqui you salute your flag first
Aqui there are no dial soap commercials
Aqui everybody smells good
Aqui tv dinners do not have a future
Aqui the men and women admire desire
and never get tired of each other
Aqui Que Pasa Power is what’s happening
Aqui to be called negrito
means to be called LOVE


 

It was the night
before the welfare check
and everybody sat around the table
hungry heartbroken cold confused
and unable to heal the wounds
on the dead calendar of our eyes
Old newspapers and empty beer cans
and jesus is the master of this house
Picture frames made in japan by the u.s.
was hanging out in the kitchen
which was also the livingroom
the bedroom and the linen closet
Wall to wall bad news was playing
over the radio that last week was stolen
by dying dope addicts looking for a fix
to forget that they were ever born
The slumlord came with hand grenades
in his bad breath to collect the rent
we were unable to pay six month ago
and inform us and all the empty
shopping bags we own that unless
we pay we will be evicted immediately
And the streets where the night lives
and the temperature is below zero
three hundred sixty-five days a year
will become our next home address
All the lightbulbs of our apartment
were left and forgotten at the pawnshop
across the street from the heart attack 
the broken back buildings were having
Infants not born yet played hide n seek
in the cemetery of their imagination
Blind in the mind tenants were praying
for numbers to hit so they can move out
and wake up with new birth certificates
The grocery stores were outnumbered by
funeral parlors with neon signs that said
Customers wanted No experience necessary
A liquor store here and a liquor store
everywhere you looked filled the polluted
air with on the job training prostitutes
pimps and winos and thieves and abortions
White business store owners from clean-cut
plush push-button neat neighborhoods
who learn how to speak spanish in six weeks
wrote love letters to their cash registers
Vote for me! said the undertaker: I am
the man with the solution to your problems

To the united states we came
To learn how to mispell our name
To lose the definition of pride
To have misfortune on our side
To live where rats and roaches roam
in a house that is definitely not a home
To be trained to turn on television sets
To dream about jobs you will never get
To fill out welfare applications
To graduate from school without an education
To be drafted distorted and destroyed
To work full time and still be unemployed 
To wait for income tax returns
and stay drunk and lose concern
for the heart and soul of our race
and the climate that produce our face 

To pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the united states
of installment plans
One nation
under discrimination
for which it stands
and which it falls
with poverty injustice
and televised
firing squads
for everyone who has
the sun on the side
of their complexion 

Lapiz: Pencil
Pluma: Pen
Cocina: Kitchen
Gallina: Hen 

Everyone who learns this
will receive a high school equivalency diploma
a lifetime supply of employment agencies
a different bill collector for every day of the week
the right to vote for the executioner of your choice
and two hamburgers for thirty-five cents in times square

We got off
the two-engine airplane
at idlewild airport
(re-named kennedy airport
twenty years later)
with all our furniture
and personal belongings
in our back pockets 

We follow the sign
that says welcome to america
but keep your hands
off the property
violators will be electrocuted
follow the garbage truck
to the welfare department
if you cannot speak english 

So this is america
land of the free
for everybody
but our family
So this is america
where you wake up
in the morning
to brush your teeth
with the home relief
the leading toothpaste
operation bootstrap
promise you you will get
every time you buy
a box of cornflakes 
on the lay-away plan
So this is america
land of the free
to watch the
adventures of superman
on tv if you know
somebody who owns a set
that works properly
So this is america
exploited by columbus
in fourteen ninety-two
with captain video
and lady bird johnson
the first miss subways
in the new testament
So this is america
where they keep you
busy singing
en mi casa toman bustelo
en mi casa toman bustelo

Being Puertorriqueña-Dominicana
Borinqueña-Quisqueyana
Taina-Africana
Born in the Bronx. Not really jíbara
Not really hablando bien
But yet, not gringa either
Pero ni portorra
Pero sí, portorra too
Pero ni qué what am I? Y qué soy?
Pero con what voice do my lips move?
Rhythms of rosa wood feet dancing bomba
Not even here. But here. Y conga
Yet not being. Pero soy
And not really. Y somos
Y como somos–bueno,
Eso sí es algo lindo. Algo muy lindo.

We defy translation
Ni tengo nombre. Nameless
We are a whole culture once removed
Lolita alive for twenty-five years
Ni soy, pero soy Puertorriqueña cómo ella
Giving blood to the independent star
Daily transfusions
Into the river
Of la sangre viva.

^{translated from the Spanish by William George Williams}

When I met her I loved myself.
It was she who had my best singing,
she who set flame to my obscure youth,
she who raised my eyes toward heaven.

Her love moistened me, it was an essence.
I folded my heart like a handkerchief 
and after I turned the key on my existence.

And thus it perfumes my soul
with a distant and subtle poetry.

Mi vida es un recuerdo 

Cuando la conocí me amé á mí mismo.
Fué la que tuvo mi mejor lirismo,
la que encendió mi obscura adolescencia,
la que mis ojos levantó hacia el cielo.

     Me humedeció su amor, que era una esencia,
doblé mi corazón como un pañuelo
y después le eché llave á mi existencia.

     Y por eso perfuma el alma mía
con lejana y diluida poesía.

^{after Pedro Pietri}

We were      nocturnal players, 

Bats in ball,      & ever since Don Pedro said 

There are Puerto Ricans      on the moon 

The night is      my cousin      & the clustered stars 

My cousin      & Saturn’s little ring of smoke      my second cousin 

Though not the same ring      as a freshly snapped Medalla bottle      which

My abuelo      also named Pedro      apparently liked too much 

But back to the moon      the first rock      dollop of sugar  

& slinging hoop in the dark      which we learned was a game

      of approximation

Less math      more muscle memory      less Mozart      more Machito 

Like descarga      more riff      more wrist. 

We set our eyes      on not seeing      but feeling a thing through, indeed

From elbow to hip      wherever the orange lip might lead

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
          is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
          tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

I have heard your voice floating, royal and real,
Across the dusky neighborhoods,
And the eyes of old men grow bright, remembering;
Children stop their play to listen,
Remembering—though they have never heard you before,
You are familiar to them:
Queen of the Blues, singing an eternal song.

In the scarred booths of Forty-Third street,
“Long Johns” suck in their bellies,
On the brass studded leather of Elite-town,
Silk-suited Bucks raise their chins …

Wherever a man is without a warm woman,
Or a woman without her muscled man,
The eternal song is sung.

Some say you’re sleeping,
But I say you’re singing.

Unforgettable Queen.

you tell the stars
don't be jealous of her light
you tell the ocean,
you call out to Olukun,
to bring her always to
safe harbor,
for she is a holy one
this woman twirling
her emerald lariat
you tell the night
to move gently
into morning so she's
not startled,
you tell the morning
to ease her into a water
fall of dreams
for she is a holy one
restringing her words
from city to city
so that we live and
breathe and smile and
breathe and love and
breathe her...
this Gwensister called life.

I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face —
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face —
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind —
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.

What happens to a dream deferred?

       Does it dry up
       like a raisin in the sun?
       Or fester like a sore—
       And then run?
       Does it stink like rotten meat?
       Or crust and sugar over—
       like a syrupy sweet?

       Maybe it just sags
       like a heavy load.

       Or does it explode?

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

that’s it
that I walked into the cafe
and in the noise and crowd
we met

and that I saw
what it was I’d been
in what it was
I saw

that in our skin
in the decade of our skin
is what began
before we knew

and that time before
with this time now
is nothing
waiting to start again

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

^{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.

I find myself on my feet with fifteen leaves.

Everything carries its own light on the walls.

I woke up being hit. The afternoon,
suffocating as the death of cows. My heart
was opened between cemeteries of moon.

The parasites. The drizzle. The mud crowning
the undergrowth with immense sadness.

I knew death when I dressed
in my uniform.

I found the index of solitude: my country in its legal
jargon, its piety, its fiction—

Yes. It loves me, really.

I give my blood as the blood of all fish.

Os doy mi corazón

Me encuentro de pie con quince hojas.

Brilla todo en los muros.

Desperté al ser golpeado. La tarde,
asfixiante como la muerte de vacas. Mi corazón
lo abrían entre cementerios de luna.

Los parásitos. La llovizna. El lodo coronando
la maleza con mustios grandes.

Supe de la muerte al vestir
de uniforme.

Encontré el índice de soledad: mi país en su jerga
legal, su piedad, su ficción—

Sí. Me quiere, de verdad.

Doy mi sangre como la sangre de todos los peces.

My mother said this to me
long before Beyoncé lifted the lyrics
from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,

and what my mother meant by
Don’t stray was that she knew
all about it—the way it feels to need

someone to love you, someone
not your kind, someone white,
some one some many who live

because so many of mine
have not, and further, live on top of
those of ours who don’t.

I’ll say, say, say,
I’ll say, say, say,
What is the United States if not a clot

of clouds? If not spilled milk? Or blood?
If not the place we once were
in the millions? America is Maps—

Maps are ghosts: white and 
layered with people and places I see through.
My mother has always known best,

knew that I’d been begging for them,
to lay my face against their white
laps, to be held in something more

than the loud light of their projectors
as they flicker themselves—sepia
or blue—all over my body.

All this time,
I thought my mother said, Wait,
as in, Give them a little more time

to know your worth,
when really, she said, Weight,
meaning heft, preparing me

for the yoke of myself,
the beast of my country’s burdens,
which is less worse than

my country’s plow. Yes,
when my mother said,
They don’t love you like I love you,

she meant,
Natalie, that doesn’t mean
you aren’t good.

*The italicized words, with the exception of the final stanza, come from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song “Maps.”

I have gazed the black flower blooming
her animal eye. Gacela oscura. Negra llorona.

Along the clayen banks I follow her-astonished,
gathering grief’s petals she lets fall like horns.

Why not now go toward the things I love?

Like Jacob’s angel, I touched the garnet of her wrist,
and she knew my name. And I knew hers—
it was Auxocromo, it was Cromóforo, it was Eliza.
It hurtled through me like honeyed-rum.

When the eyes and lips are touched with honey
what is seen and said will never be the same.

Eve took the apple in that ache-opened mouth,
on fire and in pieces, from the knife’s sharp edge.

In the photo her fist presses against the red-gold
geometry of her thigh. Black nylon, black garter,
unsolvable mysterium—I have to close my eyes to see.

Achilles chasing Hektor round the walls of Ilium
three times. How long must I circle
the high gate above her knees?

Again the gods put their large hands in me,
move me, break my heart like a clay jar of wine,
loosen a beast from some darklong depth—

my melancholy is hoofed. I, the terrible beautiful
Lampon, a shining devour-horse tethered
at the bronze manger of her collarbones.

I do my grief work with her body—labor
to make the emerald tigers in her hips leap,
lead them burning green
to drink from the violet jetting her.

We go where there is love, to the river,
on our knees beneath the sweet water.
I pull her under four times
until we are rivered. We are rearranged.

I wash the silk and silt of her from my hands—
now who I come to, I come clean to, I come good to.

^{Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing
flowers home.
         —Wisława Szymborska}

In the Kashmir mountains,
my brother shot many men,
blew skulls from brown skins,
dyed white desert sand crimson.

What is there to say to a man
who has traversed such a world,
whose hands and eyes have
betrayed him?

Were there flowers there? I asked.

This is what he told me:

In a village, many men
wrapped a woman in a sheet.
She didn’t struggle.
Her bare feet dragged in the dirt.

They laid her in the road
and stoned her.

The first man was her father.
He threw two stones in a row.
Her brother had filled his pockets
with stones on the way there.

The crowd was a hive
of disturbed bees. The volley
of stones against her body
drowned out her moans.

Blood burst through the sheet
like a patch of violets,
a hundred roses in bloom.

What still grows in winter?
Fingernails of witches and femmes,
green moss on river rocks,
lit with secrets... I let myself
go near the river but not
the railroad: this is my bargain.
Water boils in a kettle in the woods
and I can hear the train grow louder
but I also can’t, you know?
Then I’m shaving in front of an
unbreakable mirror while a nurse
watches over my shoulder.
Damn. What still grows in winter?
Lynda brought me basil I crushed
with my finger and thumb just to
smell the inside of a thing. So
I go to the river but not the rail-
road, think I’ll live another year.
The river rock dig into my shoulders
like a lover who knows I don’t want
power. I release every muscle against
the rock and I give it all my warmth.
                              Snow shakes
onto my chest quick as table salt.
Branches above me full of pine needle
whips: when the river rock is done
with me, I could belong to the evergreen.
Safety is a rock I throw into the river.
My body, ready. Don’t even think
a train run through this town anymore.

It’s true that I’m im-
patient under affliction. So?
Most of what the dead can

do is difficult to carry. As for
gender I can’t explain it
any more than a poem: there

was an instinct, I followed
it. A song. A bell. I saw
deer tracks in the snow. Little

split hearts beckoned me
across the lawn. My body
bucked me, fond of me.

Here is how you bear this flourish.
Bud, I’m buckling to blossoms now.

Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.

Para mi gente...
chequealo...
Bushwick on my mind
quinceañeras at the bodega
with their pretty pink dresses
luscious dark eyes
longing to cut the Valencia cakes
while Mr. Softee lingers
over coco helados y piragüeros
fighting for the last dollar

Across the street,
santeros dressed in white
with their collares
buying chickens at the poultry shop
for their next tambor
to be held this Sunday
in someone else’s crowded basement

Maggie cruisin’ back and forth
back and forth
keeping the dealers in check
as the sounds of beepers
Rottweiler fights
Freestyle
& chanting from the Pentecostal church
fill the air with the smells
of pernil, alcapurrias y empanadas
from La Claribel—
the best cuchifrito in town

Up on the roof,
Miguelito giving blowjobs
to gray-haired old men
so that he can get a fade
at Paul’s boutique
or buy mami that fake painting
she wanted for $5.99
down Knickerbocker Avenue

Malitza walking by
pregnant with her second baby
only 18 & already night manager at McDonald’s
She wasn’t gonna end up consumed
in the empty little crack bags
she counted
every morning
on her way to Grover Cleveland High School

Hector, her boyfriend,
home from playing handball all day
lying shirtless on the couch blunted out of his mind
staring at the roach on the ceiling
one single roach in a vast desert
or maybe an alien exploring a new world
the ceiling fan—
his spaceship

Doña Carmen sneezing so loud
the walls so thin
Hector says ‘Salud’
& she hears him from the second floor
over Walter Mercado
on Canal 41
Turning off the kitchen lights
so that the roaches can scurry into the darkness—
their freedom
like the children playing out all night

Waiting for the L train
‘Mira, Georgie...
Gimme a quarter!’
‘Fine...
but cha betta pay me back tomorrow!’

Life in Bushwick,
Ain’t it a trip!
One day we’ll all be buried
beneath the ground we spit on
 

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so black, so fierce, 
so brown, so beautiful, 
Their time on earth 
may be as oppressive as ignorance
limited to the demons flowing in their blood
but after safely passing over back to the clouds
the wind will still carry their auras and prophecies
their bones will still beat drums 
for their children to dance
the phoenix will still rise from the flames of Paris with hope in womb

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so brown, so fierce, 
so black, so beautiful, 
That if you spend too much time 
caught up in yourself
You just might miss Him that is goddess, 
she that is god, 
they that are legends
Working the runway as if walking on water 
Reaching the stage to that promised land
where ‘peace’ is not ridiculed and the only war worth fighting for
is protecting your child from the terrorist acts of a mainstream America
where ‘reading’ is an act of learning 
not degrading words used to disguise 
fragility and fractured dreams
where ‘shade’ is a shadow you walk in 
to avoid the light
but who wants to stay 
out of the warmth of the sun? 

If you waste your time 
trying to be a false prophet 
robed in attitude and labels 
to obscure the insecurity
you may fail to recognize 
their divinity and miracles
parting the crowds, resurrecting from the floor, 
scoring tens of commandments, 
because trophies will not feed the hungry, 
coat the homeless, 
hide the scars, 
Grand Prizes will not bring Lazarus or LaBeija back from the dead
they will just sit in your closet, 
fake idols gathering dust, 
before the gold paint chips away
You cannot sell them for freedom
You cannot trade them in for love

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so black, so fierce, 
so black, so beautiful, 
so brown, so fierce, 
so brown, so beautiful, 
Watch them carefully and say your prayers 
as they enter the ballroom
angel wing feathers decorating skin 
recrafted over silicone 
and martyred colors
See the Gods dream, see the Gods give, 
see the Gods live, 
They exist in the spaces where white 
is not the only hue 
that represents purity
They will not battle to your rhythms and beats
click, spin and dip simply for amusement
They will not teach those who share their souls and names to hate
Their heartbeats are louder 
than the blaring speakers 

You want realness... look at your hands
are they red from the revolution or from the blood of your own sisters

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so black, so brown, so fierce, 
so beautiful, so bright
Look up towards the heavens and pray
then look at yourself in the mirror and say
‘Stars are not only found out in the sky 
but in ourselves’
 

something between Latino and Latina, reclaiming how we are defined
hombres sitting in front of lit mirrors with a table full of cosmetics & mujeres
with skin fades and ACE-bandaged-down breasts. Something like
drag queens

at La Escuelita and butches at Café con Leche, like your cool tio that          teaches 
you how to death drop and titi with a mustache. Something like your primo
that mysteriously disappeared from the family and is never spoken about. 

Somewhere between “When did you come into this country?”
& brown  babies
in hospital delivery rooms. Growing up in a country where we are told to go  back 
to wherever we came from. Somewhere between being oppressed by white-washed 

politicians that come from families that look like us & our bodies outlined with white chalk on sidewalks when we are killed. Checked boxes without nuance. Something between J-Lo & Jenny from the block,
Rita Hayworth & Rita Moreno, migrating across 

rivers & spending all your money on airfare. Something between
VapoRub & brujeria. 
Appreciating art by Goya & Trump-loving Goya products from Spain. Taco    Tuesdays 
& the waitstaff and cooks at Italian restaurants, children in cages & kids        bussed to

schools where they are called “Spics!” Teens turning to gangs for                  brotherhood/
sisterhood & in the hood, maricones getting gay-bashed. Alcoholism & Corona, tequila, margaritas, mezcal. Somewhere between a quinceañera
and a Sweet Sixteen.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo & clutching your purse as brown boys walk by. Fetishizing Latin lovers & sex-trafficking girls who speak Spanish. Getting displaced by gentrification & “They’re taking over our neighborhoods!” Somewhere between

desirable & Undesirable. Being unwanted no matter what letter closes
us out—an o, an a, an x, an e.

Somewhere between Vanna White and “Wanna buy a vowel?” Somewhere  between
“Your English is so good!” and speaking Spanglish. Somewhere
between the right to live
the American dream & being a “welfare queen!” Somewhere
between “Gracias to the

Academy!” & filling up our prisons. Somewhere between “¡El pueblo, unido,  jamás
será vencido!” and “We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!” Somewhere    between Dia
de los Muertos & painting your face white to symbolize death. Somewhere    between “You

have the right to remain silent!” and “Silence equals death.” Somewhere      between
telenovelas and the new One Day at a Time. Somewhere between
Richie  Valens & Cardi
B. Gender fluid like Walter Mercado and Demi Lovato. Somewhere between
Lady

Bunny’s favorite snacks & Bad Bunny. Something like we were here on this land first and x marks the damn spot!
 

I look at myself in the mirror
trying to figure out what makes me an American
I see Ecuador and Puerto Rico

I see brujo spirits moving 
across the backs of Santeros
splattered with the red blood of sacrificed chickens
on their virgin white clothes 
and blue beads for Yemaya
practicing religions without a roof

I see my own blood
reddening the white sheets of a stranger
proud American blue jean labels 
on the side of the bed

I see Don Rosario in his guayabera
sitting outside the bodega
with his Puerto Rican flag
reading time in the eyes of alley cats

I see my mother trying to be 
more like Marilyn Monroe
than Julia De Burgos
I see myself trying to be more like James Dean
than Federico García Lorca

I see Carlos Santana, Gloria Estefan,
Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez
More than just sporadic Latin explosions
More like fireworks on el Cuatro de Julio
as American as Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin,
Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin

I see Taco Bells and chicken fajitas at McDonald’s
I see red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple
I see Chita Rivera on Broadway

You see, I am as American as lemon meringue pie
as American as Wonder Woman’s panties
as American as Madonna’s bra
as American as the Quinteñeros, 
the Abduls, the Lees,
the Jacksons, the Kennedys
(Mostly) all of us immigrants to this soil
since none sound American Indian to me
as American as television snow 
after the anthem is played
and I am not ashamed

Jose, can you see...
I pledge allegiance
to this country ’tis of me
land of dreams and opportunity
land of proud detergent names and commercialism
land of corporations

If I can win gold medals at the Olympics
If I can sign my life away 
to die for the United States
Ain’t no small-town hick 
gonna tell me I ain’t an American
because I can spic in two languages
coño carajo y Fuck You

This is my country too
where those who do not believe in freedom and diversity are 
the ones who need to get the hell out

Cuba and Puerto Rico
are two wings of the same bird:
they receive flowers and bullets
in the same heart.

—Lola Rodríguez de Tió, 1889

Tattoo the Puerto Rican flag on my shoulder.
Stain the skin red, white and blue, not the colors
that snap over holiday parades or sag over the graves
of veterans in the States, but the colors of Cuba reversed:
a flag for the rebels in the hills of Puerto Rico, dreamt up
by Puerto Ricans exiles in the Cuban Revolutionary Party,
bearded and bespectacled in the sleet of New York.
Wise Men lost on their way to Bethlehem. That
was 1895, the same year José Martí would die,
poet shot from a white horse in his first battle.

Tattoo the Puerto Rican flag on my shoulder,
so if I close my eyes forever in the cold
and the doctors cannot tell the cause of death,
you will know that I died like José Martí,
with flowers and bullets in my heart.

inside     us,     the     past,    present,   and    future
happening   at    once,   we   are   found   this  way,
together,  a   people  spliced  by  empire,   but  it’s
not  a gift  to not  be alone in our detailed misery,
though  i  find  the  song  familiar,  enraptured  by
the  notes  swimming  out  our  mouths, the  little
heart  of  our   language,  the shapes  of  our  eyes,
still, i  found  sadness  as  a physical law, mingling
with  the  gravity,  each   cell  being  called  to  the
center  of  something  spinning, denser  than  me,
larger  than me, older  than  me,  the  planet,  like
my  body,  can’t  stop  moving,  the  crust  divided
to   plates,   swimming   belly  to   belly   atop   the
molten  mantle,  splitting,  sliding,  and  crashing,
this  is  how  land  is  formed, this  is  how  land is
destroyed,  the  work  of  eras, sometimes there is
a   hole,    deep   below    the    ocean,   where   the
magma escapes  to  cool  at  the  sky,  this  is  how
islands  are   formed,  the  cane  watching  bomba
begin on  the  plantation,  it  was  a  language, the
bright  slaughtering  of  the  goat,  it’s  dark  spine
stretched  over   the  barril,  it was a language, the
dancers   bodies  speaking   to  the   drummers,  a
song   about  leaving,  a   song   about  sickness,  a
song   about  the hunger  of   touch,  the  seeds  in
the  maraca, the  hunched  back of the cua player
knocking   the  rhythm   to   the   wood,  it  was  a
language, millions  of  our  bodies  in  motion, my
body,    wilting   like    the   wind-touched    crops,
watching  a  little  girl,  round  and   missing  baby
teeth,   dancing   bomba  in   humboldt  park,  you
could have been there too, rolling your shoulders,
the drummers and  their  hands  of  water, rolling
atop   the   tight   animal   skin,   summoning   the
sound   to   match   your   feet   finding  the  earth,
your  feet, the  earth,  the emptiness  of my hands

Deep in the Boogie Down—
	the bassinet of the boom bap
	where the trinity is The Treacherous Three,

English is the third language
	behind Bronx and Puerto Rican,
		and I was nervous

because I only speak Catholic school
	and I'm a Red Sox fan.  

I'm just a student of KRS-1, not a son,

on a train fourteen stops beyond my comfort
	zone hiding behind headphones coughing
		bass, and a backpack full of lyrics:

Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Perdomo,
Run DMC, Brooks, wanting to be real cool,

wanting to be their "dawg"—
	but feeling like a mailman,
		another Elvis

to the students I will lead 
	through a workshop in a language

		I itch to get my rusted cavities around.

for Basquiat, Wylie Dufresne, Bob Viscusi, Trish Hicks


We all do the same ol’ same ol’ same. 
(Some don’t.) Basquiat
Dubbed it SAMO©. The buildings made
Of bricks the poems about poetry.
Viscusi said the hyphenated can’t stop yapping
About Nonna, gravy, the Old Country.
At St. John’s Rec Center, all the fathers
Are missing poems and all the poems are missing
Fathers. When the sun dies, so do the birds 
And the trees fall fast as a butcher’s knife.
So I don’t eat food anymore, I eat light.
The saying goes: you can tell a good chef
By how he cooks an egg. What is the saying
For poets? When Wylie Dufresne 
Cooks eggs, they come out cubed.       
When Jean-Michel paints eggs, Joe’s red eyes
Are in the skillet. SAMO© left his darkness
At the speed of light… 
But who is The Truth, The Light?  
We don’t discuss these things in our family, 
And my mother 
Thinks I’m perfect. We’ve mastered burying 
The dark stuff deep inside. Mom breathes smoke 
To keep it at bay, I eat light, a stack of pancakes: 
A stack of light—coffee, juice, Gatorade: 
A mug, a glass, a bottle of light—spaghetti 
With meatballs: strings of light with ornaments of light.

i don’t know how, but surely, & then again
the boy, who is not a boy, & i, who is barely
me by now, meld into a wicked, if not lovely
beast, black lacquered in black, darker
star, sky away from the sky, he begs, or
is it i beg him to beg, for me to open,
which i do, which i didn’t need to be asked
but the script matters, audition & rehearse
the body - a theatre on the edge of town
chitlin’ circuit opera house, he runs a hand, 
praise the hand, over me, still red with hot
sauce, is that what it is? his hands, jeweled
in, what? what could it be? what did he pull
from me? a robin? a wagon? our red child?

            //

pulled from me: a robin, a wagon, our red child
with dead red bird in his hands, dead child
in red coffin on wheels, parade out of me
second line up the needle & into the vial 
all the children i’ll never have, dead in me
widow father, sac fat with mourning, dusk
is the color of my blood, blood & milk
colored, chalk virus, the boy writes on me
& erases, the boy claps me between
his hands & i break apart like glitter
like coke, was there coke that night?
my nose went white then red all over
thin red river flowing down my face
my blood jumped to ask him to wade.

            //

my blood got jumped, ask him to wait
before he gives me the test results, give
me a moment of not knowing, sweet
piece of ignorance, i want to go back
to the question, sweet if of yesterday
bridge back to maybe, lord bring me
my old blood’s name, take away
the crown of red fruit sprouting
& rotting & sprouting & rotting.
in me: a garden of his brown mouth
his clean teeth, his clean answer
phantom hiding behind a red curtain
& i would sing if not for blood in my throat
if my blood was not a moat. 

            //

if my blood was not a moat, i’d have a son
but i kingdom myself, watch the castle turn
to exquisite mush. look at how easy bones 
turn to grits how the body becomes effigy. 
would have a daughter but i am only 
the mother of my leaving. i sit on the jungle gym
crying over other people’s children, black 
flowers blooming where my tears fall. 
bees commune at their lips, then 
turn them to stone. as expected.
my blood a river named medusa. every man 
i touch turns into a monument. i put 
flowers at their feet, their terrible stone feet. 
they grow wings, stone wings, & crumble. 

            //

they grow wings, stoned wings, crumble
& fall right out my body, my little darlings.
i walk & leave a trail of my little never-
no-mores. my little angels, their little feathers
clogging the drain, little cherubs drowning
right in my body, little prayers bubbling
at the mouth, little blue skinned joys
little dead jokes, little brown eyed can’ts
my nursery of nunca, family portrait
full of grinning ghost, they look just like me
proud papa of pity, forever uncle, father
figure figured out of legacy, doomed daddy. 
look at my children, skipping toward the hill
& over the hill: a cliff, a fire, an awful mouth.

            //

& over the hill: a cliff, a fire, the awful mouth
of an awful river, a junkyard, a church made
from burnt churches – place for prayer
for those who have forgotten how to pray.
i stand by the river, the awful one, dunk
my head in the water & scream
for my river-bottom heirs – this is prayer
right? i fall & i drown & i trash & i burn
& i dunk my head in the water & i
call the children drowned in my blood
to come home – this is the right prayer?
lord, give me a sign, red & octagonal.
god bless the child that’s got his own.
god bless the father who will have none. 

            //

god bless the father who will have none
to call him father, god bless the lonely
god who will create nothing. but there’s
pills for that. but the pills cost too much.
& the womb cost money to rent.
but who will let you fill them with seed
from a tree of black snakes? but i didn’t know
what he was bringing to me. but he
told me he was negative. but he wasn’t
aware of the red witch spinning
in his blood. but he tasted so sweet.
sweet as a child’s smile. sweet as a dream
filled with children who look just like you
you know: black, chubby, beaming, dying.

            //

you know: black, chubby, beaming, dying
of hunger, dying on the news, dying to forget
the news, he came to me like that. we were
almost brothers, almost blood, then we were. 
good god, we made a kind of family – in my veins
my son-brothers sleep, sisters-daughters 
name each cell royal, home, untouchable. 
in every dream, i un- my children: 
untuck them into bed, unkiss their lil wounds
unteach them how to pray, unwake in the night
to watch their little chests rise & fall, unname
them, tuck them back into their mothers
& i wake up in bed with him – his red, dead, gift
i don’t know how, but surely, & then again.

                                  for Monica Sok

These bridges are a feat of engineering. These pork & chive dumplings
            we bought together, before hopping on a train
& crossing bridges, are a feat of engineering. Talking to you, crossing bridges
            in trains, eating pork & chive dumplings in your bright boxcar
of a kitchen in Brooklyn, is an engineer’s dream-feat
            of astonishment. Tonight I cannot believe
the skyline because the skyline believes in me, forgives me my drooling
            astonishment over it & over the fact that this happens,
this night, every night, its belief, glittering mad & megawatt like the dreams
            of parents. By the way, is this soy sauce
reduced sodium? Do you know? Do we care? High, unabashed sodium intake!
            Unabashed exclamation points! New York is an exclamation
I take, making my escape, away from the quiet snowy commas of Upstate
            & the mess of questions marking my Bostonian past.
In New York we read Darwish, we write broken sonnets finally forgiving
            the Broken English of Our Mothers, we eat
pork & chive dumplings, & I know, it’s such a 90s fantasy
            of multiculturalism that I am
rehashing, but still, in New York I feel I can tell you how my mother & I
            used to make dumplings together, like a scene
out of The Joy Luck Club. The small kitchen, the small bowl of water
            between us. How we dipped index finger, thumb.
Sealed each dumpling like tucking in a secret, goodnight.
            The meat of a memory. A feat of engineering.
A dream of mother & son. Interrupted by the father, my father
            who made my mother get on a plane, a theory,
years of nowhere across American No’s, a degree that proved useless.
            Proved he was the father. I try to build a bridge
to my parents but only reach my mother & it’s a bridge she’s about to
            jump off of. I run to her, she jumps, she’s
swimming, saying, Finally I’ve learned—all this time, trying to get from one useless
            chunk of land to another, when I should’ve stayed
in the water. & we’re drinking tap water in your bright Brooklyn kitchen.
            I don’t know what to tell you. I thought I could
tell this story, give it a way out of itself. Even here, in my fabulous
            Tony-winning monologue of a New York, I’m struggling to get
to the Joy, the Luck. I tell you my mother still
            boils the water, though she knows she doesn’t have to anymore.
Her special kettle boils in no time, is a feat of engineering.
            She could boil my father in it
& he’d come out a better person, in beautiful shoes.
            She could boil the Atlantic, the Pacific, every idyllic
American pond with its swans. She would.

^{—for Creativity and Crisis at the National Mall}

queer me
shift me
transgress me
tell my students i’m gay
tell chick fil a i’m queer
tell the new york times i’m straight
tell the mail man i’m a lesbian
tell american airlines
i don’t know what my gender is
like me
liking you
like summer blockbuster armrest dates
armrest cinematic love
elbow to forearm in the dark
humor me queerly
fill me with laughter
make me high with queer gas
decompress me from centuries of spanish inquisition
& self-righteous judgment
like the blood my blood
that has mixed w/ the colonizer
& the colonized
in the extinct & instinct to love
bust memories of water & heat
& hot & breath
beating skin on skin fluttering
bruise me into vapors
bleed me into air
fly me over sub-saharan africa & asia & antarctica
explode me from the closet of my fears
graffiti me out of doubt
bend me like bamboo
propose to me
divorce me
divide me into your spirit 2 spirit half spirit
& shadow me w/ fluttering tongues
& caresses beyond head
heart chakras
fist smashing djembes
between my hesitations
haiku me into 17 bursts of blossoms & cold saki
de-ethnicize me
de-clothe me
de-gender me in brassieres
& prosthetic genitalias
burn me on a brazier
wearing a brassiere
in bitch braggadocio soprano bass
magnificat me in vespers
of hallelujah & amen
libate me in halos
heal me in halls of femmy troubadors
announcing my hiv status
or your status
i am not afraid to love you
implant dialects as if they were lilacs
in my ear
medicate me with a lick & a like
i am not afraid to love you
so demand me
reclaim me
queerify me

Whatever happens with us, your body
will haunt mine—tender, delicate
your lovemaking, like the half-curled frond
of the fiddlehead fern in forests
just washed by sun. Your traveled, generous thighs
between which my whole face has come and come—
the innocence and wisdom of the place my tongue has found there—
the live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth—
your touch on me, firm, protective, searching
me out, your strong tongue and slender fingers
reaching where I had been waiting years for you
in my rose-wet cave—whatever happens, this is.