* Important Note: Words printed in blue can be found in the glossary. These words include Spanish and also cultural references, which will be valuable in understanding the poems.
You Bring Out the Mexican in Me
You bring out the Mexican in
me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila lagrímas
on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go
the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace
linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores
del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas,
glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with
the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi
trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian
of the tongue in me.
the berrinchuda,
bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in
me.
The pre-Columbian death and
destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear
threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you
do.
You bring out the colonizer
in me.
The holocaust of desire in
me.
The Mexico
City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtaccíhuatl
in me.
The tidal wave of recession
in me.
The Agustín
Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa
taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with
cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked
other,
I am the memory that circles
your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon
tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent
you in two.
I want to defile you and raise
hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen
knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk
the air with crosses.
Me
sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl
in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch
in me.
The switchblade in the boot
in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in
me.
The Flecha
Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue
fever in me.
The ¡Alarma!
murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of
you and think
it worth it. Brandish
a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter
and look at you,
languid in your light.
Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth
goddess Tlazoltéotl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddesss without
guilt.
The delicious debauchery.
You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness
in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin
in me.
the original transgression
in me.
Red ocher.
Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Piñón.
Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and
terrible,
Virgen
de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero
ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero
amarte. Atarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman
loves. Let
me show you. Love the
only way I know how.
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.
Ya no eres
mi amorcito
¿verdad?
ya lo supe.
ya lo sé.
Fuiste
y ya no eres.
Fuimos
y se acabó.
¿Cómo les diría?
¿Cómo se explica?
Te conocí
¿y ahora?
no.
I can't imagine that goofy
white woman
with you. Her pink skin
on your dark.
Your tongue on hers.
I can't
imagine without laughing.
Who would've thought.
Not her ex-boyfriend--
your good ol' ex-favorite
best buddy,
the one you swore was thicker
than kin,
blood white brother, friend--
who wants to slit you open
like a pig
and I don't blame him.
Isn't it funny.
He acting Mexican.
You acting white.
I can't imagine this woman.
nor your white ex-wife.
Nor any
of those you've hugged and
held,
so foreign from the the country
we shared.
Damn. Where's your respect?
You could've used a little
imagination.
Picked someone I didn't know.
Or at least,
a bitch more to my liking.
With
Lorenzo at the Center of the Universe,
el Zócalo,
Mexico City
We had to cross the street
twice
because of rats. But
there it was.
The zócalo
at night and la Calle de la Moneda
like a dream out of Canaletto.
Forget
Canaletto. This was
real.
And you were there, Lorenzo.
The cathedral smoky-eyed and
still
rising like a pyramid after
all
these centuries. You
named the four
holy centers--Amecameca,
Tepeyac, and two
others I can't remember.
I remember you,
querida
flecha, and how all the words I knew
left me. The ones in
English and the few
in Spanish too.
This is the center of the universe,
I said and meant it.
This is eterntity.
This moment. Now.
And love,
that wisp of copal that scared
the hell
out of you when I mentioned
it,
love is eternal, though
what eternity has to do with
tomorrow,
I don't know. Understand?
I'm not sure you followed me.
Not now, not then. But
I know
what I felt when I put my
hand
on your heart, and there was
that kiss,
just that, from the center
of the universe.
Or at least my universe.
Lorenzo, is the center of the
universe
always so lonely at night
and so
crowded in the day?
Earlier
I'd been birthed from the
earth
when the metro bust loose
at noon.
Stumbled up the steps over
Bic pens
embroidered with Batman logos,
red
extension cords, vinyl wallets,
velveteen
roses, pumpkin seed vendors,
brilliant
masons looking for work.
I remember the boy
with the burnt foot carried
by his mother,
the smell of meat frying,
a Styrofoam
plate sticky with grease.
At night we fled
the racket of Garibaldi
and
mariachi
chasing cars down Avenida
Lázaro Cárdenas
for their next meal.
At La Hermosa Hortensia,
lights brights as an ice cream
parlor,
faces sweaty and creased with
grief.
My first pulque
warm and frothy like [hot chocolate].
On the last evening we said
good-bye
along two streets named after
rivers. I
fumbled with the story of
Borges and his Delia.
When we meet again beside
what river?
But this was no poem.
Only mosquitoes
biting like hell and a good-bye
kiss like a mosquito bite
that left
me mad for hours. After
all,
hadn't it taken centuries
for us
to meet at the center of the
universe
and consummate a kiss?
Lorenzo, I forget what's real.
I mix up the details of what
happened
with what I witnessed inside
my
universe. Is it like
that for you?
But I thought for a moment,
I really did,
that a kiss could be a universe.
Or [a look]. Or love,
that old shoe. See.
Still hopeless. Still
writing poems
for pretty men. Half
of me alive
again. The other shouting
from the sidelines,
Sit down, clown.
Ah, Lorenzo, I'm a fool.
Eternity or bust. That's
how it is with me.
Even if eternity is simply
one kiss,
one night, one moment.
And if love isn't
eternal, what's the point?
If I knew the words I'd explain
how a man loves a woman before
love
and how he loves her after
is never the same. How
the two halves split
and can't be put back whole
again.
Isn't it a shame?
You named the holy centers
but forgot
one--the heart. Said
every
time you'd pass this zócalo
you'd think of me and that
kiss
from the center of the universe.
I remember you, Lorenzo.
See
this zócalo?
Remember me.
You come from that country
where the bitter is more bitter
and the sweet, sweeter.
You come from that town split
down the center life a cleft
lip.
You come from the world
with a river running through
it.
The dead. The living.
The river Styx.
You come from the twin Laredos.
Where the world was twice-named
and
nopalitos
flower like a ripe ranchera.
Ay
corazón, ¿tú que sabes de amor?
No wonder your heart is filled
with mil
peso notes and jacaranda.
No wonder the clouds laugh
each
time they cross without papers.
I know who you are.
You come from that county
where the bitter is more bitter
and the sweet, sweeter.
He says he likes Mexico.
Especially all that history.
That's what I understand
although my French
is not that good.
And wants to talk
about U.S. racism.
It's not often he meets
Mexicans in the south of France.
He remembers
a Mexican Marlon Brando once
on French tv.
How, in westerns,
the Mexicans are always
the bad guys. And--
Is it true
all Mexicans
carry knives?
I laugh.
--Lucky for you
I'm not carrying my knife
today.
He laughs too.
--I think
the knife you carry
is abstract.
Arturito
the Amazing Baby Olmec
Who is Mine by
Way of Water
Arturito, when you were born
the hospital gasped when
they fished you from your
fist of sleep,
a rude welcome you didn't
like a bit,
and I don't blame you.
The world's a mess.
You inherited the family sleepiness
and overslept.
And in that sea the days were
nacre.
When you arrived on Mexican
time,
you were a wonder, a splendor,
a plunder,
more royal than any Olmec
and as mysterious and grand.
And everyone said "¡Ay!"
or "Oh!" depending on their
native tongue.
So, here you are, godchild,
a marvel that could compete
with any ancient god
asleep beneath the Campeche
corn. A ti te tocó
the aunt who dislikes kids
and Catholics,
your godmother. Don't
cry!
What do amazing godmothers
do?
They give amazing gifts.
Mine to you---
three wishes.
First, I wish you noble like
Zapata,
because a man is one who guards
those weaker than himself.
Second, I wish you a Gandhi
wisdom,
he knew power is not the fist,
he knew the power of the powerless.
Third, I wish you Mother Teresa
generous.
Because the way of wealth
is giving
yourself away to others.
Zapata, Gandhi, Mother Teresa.
Great plans! Grand joy!
Amazingness!
For you, my godchild, nothing
less.
These are my wishes, Arturo
Olmec,
Arturito amazing boy.
