I Am So in Love I Grow a New Hymen
Terrorists of the last
decade. Anarchists who fled
with my heart thudding on the back
bumper of a flatbed truck.
Nelson Algren impersonators.
Joe Hill detonators. Los-más-
chingones-de-los-más-chingones-
politically-correct-Marxist-tourists/voyeurs.
Olympic gold, silver, bronze love-
triathlons and several blue-
ribbon runner-ups to boot.
Forgot, forgotten, forget.
Past tense and no regrets.
No doubt you’re Villa
and I’m Pershing’s dizzy troops.
No doubt I’m eucalyptus and you
a California conflagration. No doubt
you’re eucharist, Euclidean geometry,
World War II’s Gibraltar strait,
the Chinese traders of Guangzhou,
Zapatistas breakfasting at Sanborn’s,
Sassoferrato’s cobalt blue,
Museo Poldi Pezzoli’s insurance rate,
Gaudí’s hammer against porcelain plates.
Ay, daddy, daddy, I
don’t give a good goddamn. I
don’t give
a good
god
damn.
Your Name Is Mine
And holy to me And your spirit
And that twin of divine
Death granted me in my sex
A complete breath And this silence
I trust And howl This body this
Spirit you give me
A gift of Taxco rain
Fine as silver
An antique pleasure
Obsidian and jade
The centuries I knew you
Even before I knew your man
Sex mother me The elegance
Of your jaguar mouth
Something Like Rivers Ran
undid the knot the ribbons
the silk flags of motion
unraveled from under
the flesh of the wrists
the stone of the lungs
something like water
broke free the prayer
of the heart
the grief of the hands
crooned sweet when
you held me
dissolved knee into knee
belly into belly
an alphabet of limbs
ran urgently
nudged loose a pebble
a pearl
a noose undoing its greed
and we were Buddha
and we were Jesus
and we were Allah
at once
a Ganges absolving
language woman man
You My Saltwater Pearl
You my saltwater pearl,
my mother, my father,
my bastard child,
heaven and hurt,
you my slavery of sadness,
my wrinkled heart.
Little coin of my eye,
my tulip, my tin cup,
my woman, my boy,
to keep and be kept by,
to rankle and rile.
Take me like a boy,
hurt me a little. Make me cry.
I’m your milk and honey.
Your Nebuchadnezzar.
Your ziggurat of pleasure.
Your thumbprint of grief.
I’ll be hashish.
The put aside not-for-sale
item for the maharaja,
vulgar as a Liz Taylor jewel.
Your Taj Mahal.
Please me. I’ll pet you,
terrorize and take you.
Mother of my heart,
bastard child,
sweet mama, sweet daddy,
my saltwater pearl.
You Like to Give and Watch Me My Pleasure
You like to give and watch me my
pleasure. Machete me in two.
Take for the taking what is yours.
This is how you like to have me.
I’m as naked as a field of cane,
as alone as all of Cuba
before you.
You could descend like rain,
destroy like fire
if you chose to.
If you chose to.
I could rise like huracán.
I could erupt as sudden as
a coup d’état of trumpets,
the sleepless eye of ocean,
a sky of black urracas.
If I chose to.
I don’t choose to.
I let myself be taken.
This power is my gift to you.
Christ You Delight Me
Christ you delight me,
Woolen scent of your sex,
Fury of your memory,
My hands still on the hilt
Of that excalibur of hip,
Blessed resurrection of thigh,
All these miles, ay!
Even now, as far away from you
As desert and mesa will allow,
Even now, under this welcome
Rain, yellow roses and honey-
Suckle vines, I have to hunker
My cunt close to the earth,
This little pendulum of mine
Ringing, ringing, ringing.
En Route to My Lover I Am Detained by Too Many Cities and Human Frailty
Damn these damn
hours between me,
you. Cities and deserts
and hours and hours that widen
like dreams. And dreams that narrow
like bridges. And seconds
endless as all of Texas
lethargic and thick
under the dogday heat.
Hurry.
What matters is to be
inside the prayer of your body,
beneath the wings of your eyes,
the chuparrosa hummingbird being
in the man flower of your
sex.
Dulzura
Make love to me in Spanish.
Not with that other tongue.
I want you juntito a mí,
tender like the language
crooned to babies.
I want to be that
lullabied, mi bien
querido, that loved.
I want you inside
the mouth of my heart,
inside the harp of my wrists,
the sweet meat of the mango,
in the gold that dangles
from my ears and neck.
Say my name. Say it.
The way it’s supposed to be said.
I want to know that I knew you
even before I knew you.
You Called Me Corazón
That was enough
for me to forgive you.
To spirit a tiger
from its cell.
Called me corazón
in that instant before
I let go the phone
back to its cradle.
Your voice small.
Heat of your eyes,
how I would’ve placed
my mouth on each.
Said corazón
and the word blazed
like a branch of jacaranda.
Love Poem for a Non-Believer
Because I miss
you I run my hand
along the flat of my thigh
curve of the hip
mango of the ass Imagine
it your hand across
the thrum of ribs
arpeggio of the breasts
collarbones you adore
that I don’t
My neck is thin
You could cup
it with one hand
Yank the life from me
if you wanted
I’ve cut my hair
You can’t tug
my hair anymore
A jet of black
through the finger
s now
Your hands cool
along the jaw
skin of the eyelids
nape of the neck
soft as a mouth
And when we open like apple
split each other in half and
have seen the heart
of the heart
of the heart that part
you don’t I don’t
show anyone the part
we want to reel
back as soon as it
is suddenly unreeled like silk
flag or the prayer call
of a Mohammed we won’t
have a word for this except
perhaps religion
The Heart Rounds Up the Usual Suspects
I sleep with the cat
when no one will have me.
When I can’t give it away
for love or money—
I telephone the ones
who used to love me.
Or try to lure the leery
into my pretty web.
I’m loony as a June bride.
Cold as a bruja’s tit.
A pathetic bitch.
In short, an ordinary woman.
Grateful to excessiveness.
At the slightest tug of generousness,
I stick to the cyclop who takes me,
lets me pee on the carpet
and keeps me fed.
Have you seen this woman?
I am considered harmless.
Armed and dangerous.
But only to me.
Waiting for a Lover
And what if you don’t arrive?
And what if you do?
I’m so afraid
I cross my fingers,
make a wish,
spit.
You’re new.
You can’t hurt me yet.
I light the candles.
Say my prayers.
Scent myself with mangoes.
I like the possibility of anything,
the little fear I feel
when you enter a room.
I haven’t a clue of the who of you.
And what if you do like me?
And what if you do?
I can’t think.
Dress myself in slinky black,
my 14-karat hoops and my velvet spikes.
Smoke two cigars.
I’m doing loopity loops.
Listen—cars roar by. All night.
I’m waiting for the one that stops.
All my life. Listen—
Hear that?
Yikes.
Well, If You Insist
My body, this
body, that has
nothing to do
with who
I am. But
it’s my body,
this body you
long for. Sinew
and twist of flesh,
helix of desire and vanity.
These bodies. Your body.
My body. Ours
swallowing each other
whole. This. That.
Neck. Mouth. Cock. Cunt.
Little terrorist, you terrify me.
Come in then. Climb on. Get in.
Well, if you insist. If you
insist …
Pumpkin Eater
I’m no trouble.
Honest to God I’m not.
I’m not
the kind of woman
who telephones in the middle of the night,
—who told you that?—
splitting the night like machete.
Before and after. After. Before.
No, no, not me.
I’m not
the she who slings words bigger than rocks,
sharper than Houdini knives,
verbal Molotovs.
The one who did that—yo no fuí—
that wasn’t me.
I’m no hysteric,
terrorist,
emotional anarchist.
I keep inside a pumpkin shell.
There I do very well.
Shut a blind eye to where
my pumpkin-eater roams.
I keep like fruitcake.
Subsist on air.
Not a worry nor care.
Please.
I’m as free for the taking
as the eyes of Saint Lucy.
No trouble at all.
I swear, I swear, I swear …
I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won’t Because I’m Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen
Bring me a drink.
I need to think a little.
Paper. Pen.
And I could use the stink
of a good cigar—even
though the sun’s out.
The grackles in the trees.
The grackles inside my heart.
Broken feathers and stiff wings.
I could jump.
But I don’t.
You could kill me.
But you won’t.
The grackles
calling to each other.
The long hours.
The long hours.
The long hours.
Bay Poem from Berkeley
Mornings I still
reach for you before
opening my eyes.
An antique habit from
last summer when we pulled
each other into the heat of groin
and belly, slept with an arm
around the other.
The Texas sun was like that.
Like a body asleep beside you.
But when I open my eyes
to the flannel and down,
mist at the window and blue
light from the bay, I remember
where I am.
This weight
on the other side of the bed
is only books, not you. What
I said I loved more than you.
True.
Though these mornings
I wish books loved back.
After Everything
It’s always the same.
No liquor in the house.
The last cigar snuffed in its ashes.
And a heavy dose of poems.
At two a.m. you know
that can’t be good for you.
But there I go,
arteries crackling like
artillery when I dial.
East or west.
Central or Pacific.
Chicago, San Antonio, New York.
And when I’m through
hurling words as big as stones,
slashing the air with my tongue,
detonating wives and
setting babies crying.
And when my lovers are finished
telling me—You’re nuts,
Go screw yourself,
Stop yelling and speak English please!
After everything
that’s breakable is broken,
the silence expensive,
the dial tone howling like my heart.
I Want to Be a Father Like the Men
I want to be a father
like the men
I’ve loved.
Each with their
little starfish
beside them.
Their bold Arctic flag.
Their tug of affirmation
who fright me with the eye
and bone and jaw
I recognize and thought
I claimed as mine.
I’d like to give
without disgrace
my name.
To search for he, for she
who is my own to keep
exclusively.
To neither
give away nor loan.
I want to know
how love can grow irrevocable
and prove the fable true.
A love exists that gives.
And won’t take back what�
��s given.
Like the men.
El Alacrán Güero
They say el alacrán güero can kill
you. That’s what they say.
Of all the scorpions that exist,
the white one is the deadliest.
One sting
makes the tongue thick,
asphyxiates.
Before you know it,
you are another
femme fatality.
Beware el alacrán güero
whose grief arrives delayed.
Even if all your life
you’d been warned.
Even if you’d snuffed
your eyes to their beauty
like a passionate Saint Lucy.
You are not immune.
Unaware is how Death
will find you. Coiled
in your righteous sleep.
Shake the sheets.
Stand the bed in cans of water.
Look before you leap.
Beware el alacrán güero,
I tell you.
I know of what I speak.
Thing in My Shoe
Thing in my shoe,
dandelion, thorn, thumbprint,
one grain of grief that has me undone once more,
oh my father, heartily sorry am I for this right-side of the brain
who has alarmed and maimed and laid me many a day now invalid low.
I should know, I’m full of its decibel.
This me that is me that is mine all mine
under one and twenty eiderdowns.
I confess
a certain foppy sappiness regular as the 26-day flow,
like the macabre Carlotta. Under duress