San Mateo poetry

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Almost new moon


On the stoop, the little thing,
playing with the knobs
on her lower back;
the almost bones,
they kept her from the crescent moon.
In time enough,
the wind would scatter enough dust
past the scene
for her to go inside,
inside where it was safe enough
to remove her sweater
yet dank she wouldn’t wish to.
So were the heavens overrated?—
It had been days since she had seen sign of them,
no mist, not between the dreams
that came sometime between suppers.
Since only darkness allowed for solitude,
her fetal body would nuzzle up to the electric fire,
to the block words spinning images,
black and white pictures
across the screen.
How could she read the subtitles—
those cat claws underlining her daydream,
herself in the space each evening
before she overturned
like a little pencil diver,
before the moon dangled
her body over the motley face
she watched that evening in the glass.
No—not ruddy enough,
nor jaundiced enough—
“So choose a shade,
Choose any color you like”
whispered the voice from the street.
“Any hue you pick I’ll want you that way,
so let’s get on with it alright?
This night’s be wrong so long already
and now it’s over, look—
the dogs fell silent.








Second Night in San Mateo


How easy it would be
to shred herself—
Just a creak of the slanted door
which barricades the night,
withholds the mob of mutts
that gnaw on chili seeds
and on each others bones
(an antojito)
to prepare their jaws
for the evening death.
How much longer would they
shave away the flesh?
Their ribs jut out
like harp strings or fangs—
at dawn, she had stuffed a shroud
into the crack under the frame
of the door that kept her
safe from that mist creeping up
against the door—as long as
she restrains herself, doesn’t let herself
be pulled by this night, the mist itself
cannot creep under anything solid—
Look—one smells the shield
watch it pounce and seize
the canvas from the rift,
another smells the find
and look they pounce
upon the cloth, upon the pouncing
upon the shreds and
only she can see the jaundiced
eyes which cannot feel
the sulfer night which slithers
under the door,
wrapping itself around her
all of her but those eyes
left to look through
the pane to witness the prelude
to the moment when she
crumbles to the floor,
one hand clenching the bolted knob,
the other holding the key.





Crossings

You must not look at flap of skinless cloth
the mangled mess that juts its sleeve
out from the faded speckle
of sallow that before or after a cleansing
would boldly cover the bolder threads
before or after the dust kicked up
by passages,
so much passed by the piles
of those who carried piles
down those roads on which
were meant to carry only themselves
and the few things
that could not burden,
the burdenless was not
what hung from the foreheads
of little girls
not allowed to be girls
the line between strong and stone
must be more tenuous than
then those moments which crossed
so many times before dawn,
the only lifeless dawn
where lifelike kerns perked up from dusty hands
but wait, then they must be wrapped
In those earlike clothes and pressed
(this was the moment of departure)
pressed to the dawn forehead
This forehead should not be so prepared!
Not an hour before it had been waken
from a colorless stream
of everything that morning
but wouldn’t be pressed against
anything but itself until dusk.

By sunset there would be new arrivals
truckloads of faded parcels with El Norte
branded to the shiny sheer
if I could have withdrawn myself
from the aching
of stepped back and forth over
my conscious:
whether to pull the straps of cloth bags
over my own forehead or let her be,
let her muscles harden from their steel
to the strength of her corn mothers,
if I softened my gaze,
if I relaxed my bulging neck
I would have seen the man behind me
that floated by,
with a demolished tree strapped to his back
to the sweater branded with the letters
of the university I attended
to learn about why the movement
of used clothes and used people
must go in opposite directions.
At which point do they collide?
If I rose up past the tin roofs,
far enough past the draping clouds,
The flies of dust that scatter in arcs
descending down again onto the silky braid,
if I peered down from above enough,
would I see the collision? The truck
loaded with discards that passes the
thorny bush stuffed with bursting spirits
that tuck themselves into the only
Spaces that they are permitted,
Those spaces non-permissible,
And then only that dust
The dusk swept up by rattling tires
Can enter though the pale green cracks
How pale could they make themselves
as they ascended? How pale the cotton
was irrelevant. The more faded
the fabric the harder it would be to see
the stains of the things I never wanted
to donate from the north, wanted to hoard
up in my box of things to possess
as I headed south with the faded things
in search of simplicity. In search—
permanent search, permanently staggering
between the discards and those that
cannot afford anything wanted, staggering
between the wanted
and those that may not want at all.








Something Kaiser


In some alleyway up north
she tightens leather straps
under a sheer layer that
might be called pants,
the type she used to wear
under the thick fabric she
left at the border,
adios she had told her mother,
as she latched the gate behind her,
adios—the default greeting of entrance
or exit so her mother couldn’t cry,
just wait, crush corn,
crush her knuckles against heavy fabric
against the concrete sink,
watch the water stream down
into the slope into where
a sewer might be built
someday if the pigs
didn’t protest too much.

But this story is told from the north
and must be linear—
she could not be lost
as long as she went in some direction,
toward someone,
even if he always said hello in passing, someone who always said hello
even if he always knew the minute
and failed to understand what crafted each one,
those evenings,
each one would repeated a monologue
over something made with corn or lard,
that she would buy from someone
who had bought these things
one morning before church.
She would stand in front of him
as he spoke about god
and respectable types of beer,
because the more she knew about those things,
the less she heard
the sounds of pigs being chased by dogs
the scraping of fingers
husking ears of corn or
her father’s throat
as he warned her devils
up north—(as he talked
she had seen him reach
in his empty pocket
for the coin that would
buy her a pepsi
on the road north,
she must continue north—

Last night a speckled man
had slathered himself
over the tiny folds
her body made in his bed.
Why would he not let
her press the wool blanket
over the holes in her ears—
the grunting, if she squinted
enough the spotted flesh
swirled like a kaleidoscope—
a game, she told herself a minute
longer before he packed himself
off to the shower with an order—don’t move—
left her body nipples up
even as the city air swept
through the windowsill—
the grunting, (perhaps more sonorous?)
continued from the bathroom
and she hated him so much
she disobeyed—turned away
from the mirror where a
glossy card sat fat
against a slender night table—
stop— something Kaiser
he was called,
what would he do if she
yelled the name from the bed,
yelled Kaiser Kaiser
come you filthy dog
as she had done so
many afternoons
running down the dusty
streets with her brother—
who named each of
their pets after the
muscled men in the
comic books he found
crumpled under wayside tires
and freshly shined shoes.

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