depending.
Iâm driving you to school with your blue pants and box of lunch.
Iâm combing your hair with my eyes.
Theyâve built fancy houses around a giant pit. What do people see in it?
The smokestacks were smoking when I was in college, when my father
drove me down the old road on the other side.
Was it neat? We both know smoke isnât neat but I guess
what you mean. Was it black or white? I canât recall.
So much has poured out the top of my head.
I knew the lady who owned the smokestacks, her peacock
bit my hand. We take turns imagining what happens next,
if they stand or fall, whether the wrecked warehouse
with arches will be spared, or the fog lift, or the sun.
Today a small red light glitters at the throat of the lucky one.
You call it a good sign. At school your friends wear puffy coats
bright as parrots. You fly into your teacherâs arms.
I could even hug a dull-looking father in his necktie
as we roll out of the lot into our daily lives. When I pass
the smokestacks again, their firm ladders
and proud ALAMO lettering up the sides, Iâm fiddling
with the radio dial, swinging into a lane of cars.
Now the gloom of distant news washes over worse than grit
and we canât clean it, fix it, or make good sense.
Still we hold our mouths wide open, and the birds,
the sky, the trees, and the river
fly into us as if anything could heal. Somewhere deep,
these years must be churning the way cement does
inside a truck. The cement those smokestacks helped to makeâ
it became sidewalks all over this city. It became
buildings and tunnels and walls. We donât think of it gleaming.
Even the highway I drive on.
ALONE
He grows used to the sound of the floor
Not yet     Not yet
     each evening
right before the news comes on.
Then the killing and the stabbing
and the beating and the crashing.
Turn it off. Thereâs a smudge on the wall,
a Jesus with a blazing heart.
His coffee cup waits
upside down on its plate.
The shape of dinner tastes upside down.
He eats whatever the nurse-lady left him,
the hamburger in its three-day shirt.
Sometimes he doesnât know the name
of what he eats.
He hauls his body to the porch,
sinks his eyes into the weeds.
A hose curls in the lilies.
If he could reach it,
make it down
those three crooked steps . . .
When his wife died he was very quiet
for one day. Then he smiled
and smiled with his two teeth
for the bad time they had
that was over.
His tongue could sound
Soledad
or
Solamente
for his bones and his blood and his few good hairs.
When the drop of water on the white sink
meets the next drop and they are joining,
he thinks of other ways to spend this life
that he didnât do. He would like to meet them.
ALPHABET
One by one
the old people
of our neighborhood
are going up
into the air
their yards
still wear
small white narcissus
sweetening winter
their stones
glisten
under the sun
but one by one
we are losing
their housecoats
their formal phrasings
their cupcakes
When I string their names
on the long cord
when I think how
there is almost no one left
who remembers
what stood in that
brushy spot
ninety years ago
when I pass their yards
and the bare peach tree
bends a little
when I see their rusted chairs
sitting in the same spots
what will be forgotten
falls over me
like the sky
over our whole neighborhood
or the time my plane
circled high above our street
the roof of our house
dotting the tiniest
âiâ
FEATHER
Sheâs walking up the street from Sanitary Tortilla
with her pink mesh shopping bag.
Mrs. Esquivel of the waving plants,
front porch lined with leaves.
In softer light she dances with sheets.
She came here from the old days.
Slipped out of the old days like a feather.
Floated here with her aluminum pot lids
and blue enamel spoons tied to her wings.
Fanning the heat away
Iâm driving you to school with your blue pants and box of lunch.
Iâm combing your hair with my eyes.
Theyâve built fancy houses around a giant pit. What do people see in it?
The smokestacks were smoking when I was in college, when my father
drove me down the old road on the other side.
Was it neat? We both know smoke isnât neat but I guess
what you mean. Was it black or white? I canât recall.
So much has poured out the top of my head.
I knew the lady who owned the smokestacks, her peacock
bit my hand. We take turns imagining what happens next,
if they stand or fall, whether the wrecked warehouse
with arches will be spared, or the fog lift, or the sun.
Today a small red light glitters at the throat of the lucky one.
You call it a good sign. At school your friends wear puffy coats
bright as parrots. You fly into your teacherâs arms.
I could even hug a dull-looking father in his necktie
as we roll out of the lot into our daily lives. When I pass
the smokestacks again, their firm ladders
and proud ALAMO lettering up the sides, Iâm fiddling
with the radio dial, swinging into a lane of cars.
Now the gloom of distant news washes over worse than grit
and we canât clean it, fix it, or make good sense.
Still we hold our mouths wide open, and the birds,
the sky, the trees, and the river
fly into us as if anything could heal. Somewhere deep,
these years must be churning the way cement does
inside a truck. The cement those smokestacks helped to makeâ
it became sidewalks all over this city. It became
buildings and tunnels and walls. We donât think of it gleaming.
Even the highway I drive on.
ALONE
He grows used to the sound of the floor
Not yet     Not yet
     each evening
right before the news comes on.
Then the killing and the stabbing
and the beating and the crashing.
Turn it off. Thereâs a smudge on the wall,
a Jesus with a blazing heart.
His coffee cup waits
upside down on its plate.
The shape of dinner tastes upside down.
He eats whatever the nurse-lady left him,
the hamburger in its three-day shirt.
Sometimes he doesnât know the name
of what he eats.
He hauls his body to the porch,
sinks his eyes into the weeds.
A hose curls in the lilies.
If he could reach it,
make it down
those three crooked steps . . .
When his wife died he was very quiet
for one day. Then he smiled
and smiled with his two teeth
for the bad time they had
that was over.
His tongue could sound
Soledad
or
Solamente
for his bones and his blood and his few good hairs.
When the drop of water on the white sink
meets the next drop and they are joining,
he thinks of other ways to spend this life
that he didnât do. He would like to meet them.
ALPHABET
One by one
the old people
of our neighborhood
are going up
into the air
their yards
still wear
small white narcissus
sweetening winter
their stones
glisten
under the sun
but one by one
we are losing
their housecoats
their formal phrasings
their cupcakes
When I string their names
on the long cord
when I think how
there is almost no one left
who remembers
what stood in that
brushy spot
ninety years ago
when I pass their yards
and the bare peach tree
bends a little
when I see their rusted chairs
sitting in the same spots
what will be forgotten
falls over me
like the sky
over our whole neighborhood
or the time my plane
circled high above our street
the roof of our house
dotting the tiniest
âiâ
FEATHER
Sheâs walking up the street from Sanitary Tortilla
with her pink mesh shopping bag.
Mrs. Esquivel of the waving plants,
front porch lined with leaves.
In softer light she dances with sheets.
She came here from the old days.
Slipped out of the old days like a feather.
Floated here with her aluminum pot lids
and blue enamel spoons tied to her wings.
Fanning the heat away
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