Porque el sol es grande grande y nosotros pequeños pequeños, buscamos ser soles, los muchos todos que somos. No es fácil ser cuando hay tanto que hacer, con todos los quehaceres y todo lo que debemos a nuestros deberes. Porque de tierra está hecha la tierra y de hecho todo está hecho de tierra: los[…] See more ⇒

I. Sunset after the long day So many things a bullet can do and most of all only one. The weather just turned in Tucson; it hadn’t seemed so cold this morning. Most of all in this one, this late dawn-drenched pueblo, sun metal-warm, it hadn’t seemed so cold this morning until bullet screamed first.[…] See more ⇒

Un colibrí llega a mi azotea chilanga y de repente todo me parece posible, aunque improbable: flores donde no hay colores sino cemento, metrópolis construida sobre metrópolis, metrópolis suspendida sobre lago, nervios tensos esperando tremores, craneos esperando volcanes, en fin todo, al final, todo finalmente. Entonces colíbrí, ¿así? ¿Pero cómo? Esta ciudad es cemento oxidado,[…] See more ⇒

the ink writes the poet. Headlines write the politics. Sentences write the prisoners. Textbooks write the memory, lessons ignore everyone. Grades make the student. Students learn the teacher. Jobs work the employee. Streets drive the car. TVs watch every household. Religions rely on the fanatic. Prices buy the customer. Drugs do the poor. Lines wait[…] See more ⇒

is everywhere: longblack forget-me-nots tied in knots around your pillow, in your sink, in your kitchen, in your mirror. It’s all yours now. On your chest, between your toes, under your nose and over your eyes, It’s all yours now. Laced with you, graced with you, thick traced with you, etch-a-sketched with you, wrapped in[…] See more ⇒

Microphone. Pumping hands botox cheeks unjiggling photo op. Budget speech—children are the future— drugs are bad—feedback squeal. This passes for work. Elected officials, bored reporters & governors, cops & whore dirvs, robbers & parade pompous robbers, taxdollars, tell-tale, checks unbalanced, tale-tell, payola, no tale told. Budget high heels hell to pay dirt, pintail on donkey,[…] See more ⇒

Almost full moon, a sticky sweet smell running through the cemetery. Dying flowers, the smell of accordions and tequila. Candles burning one night every year, light dancing across marble names, memory flickering across faces. Muertos. Stumbling now, through the orange light of candles, fire-colored flowers of the dead, the washed-out moonlight falling blue. A hushed[…] See more ⇒

You Lightning-Flasher, Shirt-Raiser, lack-of-control Power Blinker, toss the trees around like wet cotton candy, they’re drunk marionettes, Power Cutter, Bed Rumbler. The night is a black-eye disco, and you’re a violent drunk, Night Storm. Drenching dreams, nowhere to go but right on top of us, roof Slam-Dancer, Sky-Splitter Night Light, Gutter-Defier, Waterfall-Caller tumbling down window[…] See more ⇒

There is so much happening in the sky it’s all we can do to keep ourselves distracted. The monsoons roll in the late summer. We set the mowers against the grass, they graze like domesticated helicopters. Their growl fills up the neighborhood. Hawks fly down from the foothills bending the wind with their wide arms.[…] See more ⇒

Her breath— the one she’ll remember, word-triggered by his short, unexpected reply, fewer syllables than she would’ve liked. No. That breath— too loud in the theatre. Everyone’s necks twist around like old wood, eyebrows compacted, everyone’s tongue either a question mark or an exclamation point. A breath— unable to fly, pushed out of the nest[…] See more ⇒