My love This morning mamá came into the kitchen and handed me her morral My love You dug out an ancestral pain inherited from my grandmother to my mother to me My love Mi mama, she has always told me que las penas con pan son menos So I make myself a taco with all...
Poetry
Knives, Widower
Knives I can offer you only: this world like a knife —John Berryman A set of them in a house is nothing, where nothing becomes a meal for us. We are either kitchen or crime scene as our daily recipes prepare fresh wounds or silence in rooms. Words are food for...
Party On
They were yorking, yorking all over the city. Hot like the fourth of July. The crowd, wild grassing, and the night sky bannered and bottered. The hot hot. The zipping but not the zippers. They twobacked and sometimes three. Together, then apart. We dooglogged out of...
when asked why they can’t sing “the N-word” in rap songs
…pretend you’re invited to a house party where everyoneis welcome. there’s no cover charge. no expectation for youto cop weed or beers for anyone. snacks will be provided.at the door, the host gives you the 411: welcome to the Terrordome! in here we’re all...
The Green Mustang in Front of the House
(is a) Dead frog hard and rotting at the curb; unmatchedhubcaps. One might call "to love" April's first sunwhere the skin burns, the heart envelopedin the hardiest permafrost, an epic tundra'sdeath; the infinitive. Tiny bees flyin irrational patterns near my feet. He...
MY WOMAN
i wail that my ama still cries over her beat husband I weep over my ammama counting her days even though I know brown women never die, I don’t know how she dosent know this I cry over days spilt over the course of hot dahl and weak chai my ama coming home to only wish...
Whitewashing Frank Butler
He is a salesman, can talk you intoa bigger barrel, can weave a tale with youas Annie Oakley, sharp eyed and lightand little as she. Build him into the manyou want him to be, shadow behindthat girl—how ordinary it all seems,blue eyed boy cutting steak acrossthe table...
If Only
It's amazing what a year in solitude will make me yearn for-- events I never liked in the first place-- overly crowded outdoor festivals with $12 bud lights and lousy cover bands, waiting in line for the breakfast buffet, the Chinese buffet, the casino buffet that...
What is the Cube Root of Memory
The past has us passed out in attic rooms six to a futon bed, eyes heavy after sucking smoke from lawn ornaments— or...
The Strongest Man I Know
I cannot imagine the struggle Trapped inside my own body Which does not represent my true gender Reminded Every time I pass by a mirror Every month when red spills from between my legs Rejected By the outside world For something beyond my control But Darling, You are...