Wetback

After the first boy called me a wetback,
I opened his mouth and fed him a spoonful of honey.

            I like the way you say “honey,” he said.

I made him a necklace out of the bees that have died in my yard.

                        How good it must have felt before the small village
                        echoed its grief in his throat, before the sirens began ringing.

How fallow their scripture.

Perhaps we were on stage which meant it was a show,
which meant our only definition of a flower was also a flower.

I waved to the crowd
like they taught me,
like a mini-miss something.

                                       Thank you.
                                       Thank you.

Yes, I could have ripped open his throat.
I could have blown him a kiss from the curtain.

           I wanted to dance by myself in a dark room
           filled with the wingless bodies of bees—

           to make of this our own Old Testament
with all the same beheaded kings
           pointing at all the same beheaded prophets.

           The same Christ running through every door
           like a man who forgot his child in the car.

But the lights were too bright.
I couldn’t hear him because I wasn’t on stage.

                         I could have been anyone’s idea of pity.

How quiet our prophets.
           Let my bare back remind him of every river he’s swam in.

Miel and miel.

           I pulled the bees off the string
           and cupped them in my palm.

I told him my Spanish name.

There was nothing dry on my body—
The lamps falling over in the dark of me.