El Pollo Loco, West Los Angeles
They split the tibia, sucking out
the dense marrow.
They use up love, they swallow
every dark grain.
—Ellen Bass, “Eating the Bones”
And why wouldn’t he—crack
open each wing & suck out
what he found? He was my host
but not by blood: for me bones
were like relations—uncle, ulna,
tito, tibia—a class whittled down
to a core. Bakit ka nasa Los Angeles
was what it looked like he wanted
to ask instead of making small
talk about God & God
particles, the purported source
of all mass. Because of a girl!
Because a girl I hadn’t yet met
would teach me to drain the last marrow
with Palo Cortado. I watched him lick
each knuckle & whorl. Then he slapped
a bus token down on Formica—for me—
to cover the sights (one way at least) & buy
his apartment a few hours walang
intrusion. There were locks
on both sides of his doors—deadbolts, pin
& disc tumblers (kasi if they get in
I’ll be damned if they can get out); a jungle
potted & hanging; & the bear he claimed
to’ve put down himself—knotted
cascades of fur; as hungry for sound
as a black hole for light—a fucking
bear! We gaped at each other
the next morning, when I woke
with the flu & the landline
ringing like tinnitus behind his bedroom
door. Locked:
so was the front. Uncle Buddy had gone
to work—whatever work was—& forgot
to leave a key. The beach was brighter
& colder than I’d thought, the climates
compact, unpredictable as zip codes.
I looked out across the Pacific—far
across that crushed-up recycled light
sprawled untold acres of
bones, bones
that if struck would make mine
sing out too—
Source: Poetry (September 2021)