The Faith

Vexed by the machine
            the same bundle of sticks at
                                                the game
                                    landed in the chaparral

                        runs out raging — the injustice of the foul
                        meant everything has come to nothing
                              or nothing soothes, like egg white on a wound

Sixteen years old and a Benedictine

            in dark lounge suit      soft collar and tie      bright cardigan

            freshly scraped tongue

Most wear their country with a kind of uneasiness
                                                              but he was a good actor

He needed to be
            There’s no parade here

                  Tongue spliced in slivers            anti-fatherland available
                                                drowse under epidermis
                                    arenaceous entrails

                                                Tongue that shirks battle
                                    though the future
                                                                        certainly    impossible
                                                            to forget

leave home
                        deny father’s influence
                                                                        embrace motherhood
                                                                                                     brassiere

            Tongue            imagine a place you could travel to
                                                                                  just words

            Tongue            you are not mine            another inheritance

            You a blustering pester

                        Within two months         you enact the fiercest persecution

            Tongue         you detain in half-built houses in darkness
                                    squawk and cry
                                                you are not free
                                                                                    They will catch up to you
                                                                                    of course
                                                                                    at last

This time make no mistake or else the biggest mistake of all

Someone had thrown a bomb at automatic writing

                                                at meaning-making por las avenidas tradicionales
                                                            but the bomb malfunctioned
                                    and only burst into clouds of fifth-grade vocabularies

                                                or

            My tongue desperately searches
                                                                        trips mid-alleyway

            Tongue         you were photographed by the official
                                                            praying for your enemies by the pitted wall
                                                                                    coup de grace

            Tongue         you inhabit the body      you are el blanco
                                                                                                polysemic and erect
                        you emerge from a gaping, blistered mouth

                                                                                    diseased unease

The picture of your killing
had an unforeseen effect

                        Me callo y me caigo                              
                                                            I bite my tongue and fall