look out the bus window way


I wish for that:
 the woman swinging her head
 like a tether-ball
 flew from her
 orange-dyed hair and
 tossing her hips
 to dare somebody to try, oh yes,
 try to pass my
 just-too-little jean dress
bounce and
not reach out too see what
jiggles delight beneath
and what holds tight-
taut- and smooth, and
 she was yes feeling
 muy sex-y----
that my voice vocalized a
localized extraña-ness a
belleza, a secreto that you want,
that you wish for: that, my swinging orange secret love

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America
 
Without cable, it’s just me and America drinking
from greasy bottles without a whole lot to talk about.
If she'd stop raining, I could get a swim in edgewise
before the algae blooms and abruptly we’re left,

bereft of clean water as the weather gets hotter,
as America’s skin peels back from her face.
Now me and my nation flip through radio stations,
hunting a haunting among all the idols.

But the noise is just noise, and she's wanting a voice
or a vision or some sort of solace. America moans,
old women become shallow the better the weather
or view. For America, my land, your land,

things aren't so Woody Guthrie anymore. And what
of the estuaries? What of the sinking cities? The species
going extinct each day numbers hundreds. Still turning
the dial, we learn nobody believes it’s America's job

to bring democracy to those who need it. What do you want
from me, America stands and screams in the radio waves and
the bottle slips and smashes. I never did anything in your name,
America, and I’m pleading; take me with you when you go. 

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STAYING IN

This poem, my poem about pomegranates,
is better than Louise Glück’s.

I don’t do much else better
—except leave my house without fear—
but I read what she wrote
about pomegranates, and it was all wrong.

So I’m not making lofty connections
between my mother and the thick rough skin,
between the seeds and secrets,
between cracking it with my thumbs and fighting off this winter flu.

I’m just holding it in my hands. I rest it
on my knees to write, pinch a seed
between my teeth and suck the garnet juice
off my lips, careful not to spill on my white gown.

It’s a fruit and there’s snow
on the roof. I’m resting my body, tending to small
chores: I sweep the stairs, run a cloth over the stove, give the cats
water and rub their little faces.

I slip a crimson clump into my mouth, press
my tongue up, all the packets pop and it’s
glorious, it’s clearly too much. I have to take
a breath, pause.

Snow is paling the grass. I won’t go outside today, or tomorrow.
The roads could be slick, I could lose my grip.
I call my mother and she says, “If you’re sick you must eat fruit.”
I will dedicate myself to this, Louise.

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SURF MUSIC

When will you stop
being such a
goddamned acre?

You and your plentiful, waxing stalks of corn, you bursting
forth and open: ripe you, yellow you.
I’ll butter your sides all night.

But you won’t stop it with those Sunday girls: in the square-sided park, all their hands
in all their pockets, grinning prim in that verdant lust.
I’ll wait on the bench all day.

I sink I can’t stop, I know I’m a sunk copperfish, but my scales—
they cast off light like brassy teeth, like promise rings
and fields bit by dawn.

You know this heart of mine:
it’s a gingerbomb,
blood fizzes and slides.

My brain a blooming stew, rich oily folds warm up, slipshod tubes
sound off, they’re throbbing a brazen tune,
of course the song is you.

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Manhattan, 3 AM—
52nd and Avenue of the Americas 

   My friend and I wait half an hour for the F, then take it down to Rockefeller Center. We ride our boards uptown, between grey monoliths, on stone sidewalks—wider than most roads. Spotting the marble benches at Paine Weber, we hang a right to the back of CBS. Security guards watch only the front; if you want to hit the ledges for more than a few minutes, it’s best to circle around. There’s a homeless man trying to sleep on the corner edge of the granite block, so we move to the far end of the building, where we find a pack of four guys, hoods up and pants low, trying flip tricks off the smaller of the two drops.
   And for a few seconds, a static charge hangs in the air, so tactile I want to reach out a single finger to burst it in a photo flash. Our two groups keep each other within a sideways glance but past arm’s reach because, in this city, you’ll never notice that you’ve tripped a proximity mine until it’s too late. But they land a few tricks. And my friend and I can hold our own, so after a couple minutes, the boundaries disappear, rising into the night air, and without a word spoken, we’re all stomping the nose ends of our boards into the sidewalk for each other. Clapping has never been cold enough for people like us. Quarter of an hour later, the one of the four with the tightest pants and gnarliest hair decides it’s time to step up. He starts to eye the handrail—the rest of us form two lines along the sides of his roll-up, waiting for this to go down.

   He rides up to the nine-stair set a few times to check his angles, then begins throwing himself out to the middle of the rail, sliding his back truck down the top of it. This crazy fuck’s locking in switch fives—coming up backside and fast, he’s committing himself blind, balls out. But all of us can tell that if he has this trick, it’s going to take him more than a few attempts—the bar is steep; it throws him into the ground hard. Fifteen tries pass. He’s fighting himself to the top of the stairs like he’s scaling a vertical cliff. I catch his eye and for a second he stops. I’m struck by the way the black in his eyes looks thicker than ice. He turns and slams the metal truck of his board into the rail—it shudders a low moan, ringing so long I look away. Rock dust settles on the edges of the ledges we just thrashed. Blood drips from each and every one of our palms. My friend next to me has a mind so loud he has to drop Xanax pills just to get out of his room, now can’t even piss unless he’s on some. This guy on the stairs saw something that startled even him. There’s little warmth left in my eyes.

   We stay until security kicks us out, pushing us into the early morning street. When I wake five hours from now, my body will crack in ten places—loud enough to wake the girl next to me, who I tell I love. I’ve been putting my head to the flames for so long now it’s ready to boil over—twenty years old, still fucking up everything I touch. On the train back to Brooklyn, I notice, out of the corner of my eye, just how much the fifteen pounds and three thousand dollars my friend has lost to Xanax has shrunk the size of his arms. And even now I can’t meet his gaze for long enough to tell him—every time I look, he’s less of what he was. “That one guy was sick,” my friend says to me. I’m beginning to see his blood drying on my hands instead of my own. And I haven’t been listening for years, but I know enough now to hear what he really means.

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Outside Tequila Roadhouse, Three Years Ago Now

Streetlights poke white holes in the night as I sit alone
on a curb on bar street buzzing with distortion
and slurred words with everybody feeling ready

 to fight. Twelve beers and I’m 26 swimming
with bricks, trying to keep my head floating
above my shoulders and out of the green slick gutter water

I breathe in
and out.
What next? It’s Friday

again. The kind of Friday that sits
on my shoulders, heavy as an anvil. I get decisive
and cram my fingers into my mouth.

I reach over my tongue and down my esophagus
 Pushing my wrist, forearm, and arm through
clouds of amber lite breath. Until my hand

arrives in my stomach, reaching
 past the dust curls and all that church I went to,
reaching for the twenty that slipped under the bed  

into the hands of I don’t remember, but I’m still reaching
when something wild surprises
the last digit of my index finger and I heave:

A fetus flings into the air.

He hits the asphalt, rolls three times
and scratches his hair. One taxi
bangs on down the street without even a horn blare.

He gets up dancing the Charleston, gone so
out of style, cause he’s been in there
since before my parents were born.

He smashes an empty bottle on the curb
before he explodes into tapping,
flapping like it’s the Twenties

He commands that we party in a silent movie,
again and again I want to
applaud and obey, but I break

the sad news like a plate
that I can’t find the cash to feed him,
and I don’t want to need him anymore.

He twists up an undeveloped middle finger.
Jigging, clothed in my tissue,
he leaves me alone,
groping at my belly for something lost.

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