Dreaming Pancho Villa

The silence that was neither Spanish
nor English
was my prayer.
—Luis Alberto Urrea

Last night I dreamt I was Pancho Villa—

ragged, bandoliered, reckless.

I dreamt my poetry at the end of a pistol,

felt it kick nearly out of my hand.

But this morning I awoke again

white and assimilated into these cobwebs

of my half-self. When did I forget

my mother? Sometimes Spanish

syllables creak like wobbly shopping cart

wheels, I have to lean against accent,

fill myself with verbs: necesitar, hablar, poder.

Half, medio, milkweed,

Carlos Gringo, Carlos Murphy.

Part mexicano,

part Kentucky hillbilly,

I’ve angloed my way

through this life—

hablando español

de conveniencia,

nunca pensando en

la bendición.

I dreamed again last night

I was Pancho Villa. Only this time

I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish.

I could understand what the men

were asking me, but to blurt orders

in English would have stretched my neck.

So I kept quiet, austere. I kept a rifle

in my hand. I’ve taken it as a sign.

When I was fourteen,

I lost my brand-new Timex

in the waist-high surf of Pismo Beach.

I couldn’t feel it missing from my wrist

until I was in my uncle’s Volvo,

my shorts still soaking, my lips caked white.

The sand in my hair, the sand in my shoes—

the very real estate of Madera, where

during the revolution, no train or telegraph

passed for months. The business

lumbering on, turning trees

to the fabric of living.

After the war, they sent query

to Juárez, they needed the hour, the day,

the month, the year they hadn’t noticed.

I’m awake early, half-dreams of last night’s rain & a dirty porch pull me

from the sheets. En la madrugada, a broom is a necessary instrument.

The swish of straw against concrete, a whisper, a prayer. Shoulders

cantilever, wrists rigid, hands in pliable tension—in this motion there is

memory.

My great-grandmother swept her porch, the way she did every morning.

From the burnished Sonoran dawn, a stranger approached. She watched

him, always sweeping. The man was young, in his early thirties maybe,

beaten, ragged. His face crusted with blood, filthy. The man appealed to

her, “Señora, por favor, ayúdeme,” he said. She stopped sweeping &

looked at him. “Me siguen los federales,” he said. She looked on him with

pity & brought him into her home. She must have thought of her

daughters, she must have thought of consequence. She put the man in a

bed, went back outside to sweep. The federales arrived shortly after, five

on horseback armed & angry. “Señora,” they asked, “have you seen a

stranger this morning?” She stopped sweeping, told them she had not.

They asked if anyone was in the house. “No one,” she told them, “only my

sick uncle.” They left without incident or investigation.

Night fell. She cleaned the man’s wounds, gave him clothes, listened to

his stories of revolution. She told him, “Whether the revolution or the

government, I lose chickens all the same.” She handed him a plate of

arroz con pollo. He rested for two days. She gave him the few centavos

she had & he left amidst the desert night.

Years later, the man returned to her house—with a gift that no one can

remember—to thank her for his life.

This time it’s turning

tequila sueño,

gold spinner

gone retrograde

illusion.

La Sirena—verde-verdad,

glinting back-black

and skin—

across the metallic blue

chulo wagon.

Mariachi gone mad

in the back seat.

This is cruising

at watch-me-

miles-an-hour.

“Ese,

why don’t

you come down

to chrome avenue,

where it’s all

manos y moda?

We’ll sit

straight-slick,

three-reefer-

tone-deaf-

brass-stick high.

Me and you, pendejo.

We’ll pick up Hi-Tone,

all fingers and hair,

that little guitarrista.

No te mortifiques,

Ride shotgun with me.

Pégame un grito.”

Chale. I’ve got work to do, homes.

I’m dreamsick now. Staying asleep past

noon. Desvelado. Headache-fog

when I’m awake, even keeping down

milk is hard. Images, sounds, curdle thick

in my ears, my eyes. Levántate.

¿Qué horas son?

I dream Villa’s first murder. The other

man on horseback, his jefe’s son. An argument

at the crossroads. A girl, Pancho’s sister.

Something forced—a point, a pistol. A sharp

report, blue-black smoke. Fear, alarm—the smell

of guilt, like bad masa, taints tastes, turns on Pancho.

Running now, like before but worse. Three days

into las montañas. Marcado por vida.

In a dream of brown skin, I’m lost

in black, black hair, dark nipples,

a face I’ve never known. A kiss

so difficult I moan. My face

wet with her—princess, mujer—irrecoverable.

Only impression across

sleep-soaked lips, only an ache

and a dark, dark scent.

10.

Barbed wire fence runs down the axis

of a heart. River rides in canyon

dreams—a revolution in water.

I am a kiss, confessed by tongues that will not pronounce me.

Source: Cue Lazarus (University of Arizona Press, 2001)