From “Testaments Scratched into a Water Station Barrel”
Bought my luck.
Rabbit’s foot.
Hiked through paloverde.
Thick heat.
Bullet holes in cacti.
Rested by a ditch.
Sand littered with used tampons.
Took off my sneakers.
Ants crisscrossed my feet.
Sandal straps.
Passed around crackers.
Tuna cans.
Mustard & ketchup packets.
Trekked over three hills.
Dashed across a dirt road.
Nearly stepped on a diamondback.
Quiet coil.
Squatted under mesquite.
Drank hot water.
Tried to forget the plazas of Hermosillo.
Rose bushes.
Roasted cashews.
Tried to remember my uncle’s phone number.
A butcher in Iowa.
Ames.
Walked toward a mountain.
Coolness fell through the heat.
Guillotine.
Rested.
Fought off the oldest smuggler.
Yellow teeth.
Gums pink as horse cock.
Woke with some Portuguese in my head.
A morte nos absorve inteiramente.
Icy dawn.
Lanced my blisters.
Put on three pairs of socks.
Walked for six hours.
Dunes.
Orange wildflowers.
Twisted my right ankle.
Leaned against a boulder.
Too long.
Left behind.
Took off my jacket.
Sweated though my clothes.
Puked tuna.
Remembered my honeymoon.
The coast of Veracruz.
Cheap hotel.
Turned over Jesus before undressing.
Holy velvet.
Puked again.
Took off my shoes.
Wrapped belt around my ankle.
Lurched forward.
Gossiped with the heat.
Laughed.
Found this water station.
Waiting.
___
In a room with a terra-cotta doorknob I slept
for thirty years beneath antlers beneath
a horsehair blanket here the hours are so cold
I rub my hands over a still-warm body god
is nothing more than a gecko resting on a lemon
nothing more than grass veiled with dust
please please lift the veil all that green
yearning for a kiss I regret training my mind
like an animal it never bared its fangs
it never instinctively leapt to tenderness
there’s a harmonica tattooed on my collarbone
I can feel death’s mouth on it lips wiry & hot
Sometimes a wolf leaps out of a lion last winter
I almost eloped with my second cousin plastic
barrettes in the shape of the Eiffel Tower
keep her bangs from her eyes newer footpaths
are rigged with sensors which track
& identify the first time I saw flowering
ironwood I remembered the inside of oyster shells
lilac shuddering through ivory deep in
my guts there’s a delicacy dozens of condoms
crammed with cocaine Mexican caviar
on the flatbed of a pickup I greased my throat
with cooking oil then swallowed
Before fleeing Toluca I left a glass of water
in front of a tarnished mirror my favorite pietà
I didn’t beg for pity I didn’t beg for refuge
at night a graffitied boulder flickers
like a neon jukebox between the mountains
a crescent moon gleams like a bus station
urinal by this light I furiously scratch
I lost my virginity in a shed it fucking hurt
twice I spit in my father’s face
in my hands dark blood blood bark
a small ball of scabs peeled from my flesh
my contraband my pomegranate
___
Perro que no anda,
no encuentra hueso—
through summer, I
hurry. Blood soaks my sneakers. The handkerchief
around my head
reeks like sobacos.
If I don’t cut into cacti,
if I don’t chew the pulp to draw water out,
my shadow will
wander away.
Afternoons,
with nail polish remover, I clean the sores on my feet.
On the bottle,
in red print,
a proverb: beauty
can’t be talked into speech. The sky isn’t blue.
It’s azul. Saguaros
are triste, not curious.
In México, bodies
disappear. Bodies, in the Sonoran desert,
are everywhere.
A headless corpse
sporting a T-shirt
that reads: Superstar.
A severed hand,
black yarn around
the thumb. Welcome
to the cagada. If I don’t look for water under rocks,
my shadow
will wander away—
another wetback
veering too close to highways, too close to ranchos.
Coral alighting
on gold, yellow
alighting on rose.
Dusk, here, is stunning. Yesterday, I woke to ants crawling
over my body,
to ants crawling
over
the body on the cross around my neck.
___
God is circling like a vulture
gracias nada más
corazón de oro
a quién vas engañar
I notch letters into mesquite
carta abierta
between insight and proof
la tumba falsa
ay qué líos
I said a hurtful thing to my hermano
al sur del bravo
somos más americanos
an obsidian thorn pierces the moon’s ear
deja de llorar chiquilla
I’m counting my sins
te odio y te quiero
tú con el yo con ella
cacti needles pinprick skin
a kind of rain
lo tomas o lo tiras
I drop my rosary
it scurries away like a scorpion
reina de reinas reina del sur
mira mira mira
el avión de la muerte
viva mi Sinaloa
vivan los mojados
Source: Poetry (July/August 2020)