Notes on Death 1

Death is like a freeze-frame. it’s like watching a film stop, paused, so you can use the bathroom or get a snack, smoke a cigarette, come back and start it where you left off. Only you can’t. The film is over and the clicker’s out of batteries. It makes you uncomfortable, because nothing can stay that still for that long, and you find yourself fidgeting and moving almost uncontrollably, in an inane effort to ease the lack of equilibrium in the room. You inhale deeply and sigh loudly, you are now breathing for two. Your mind plays tricks on you. Your mind works through association, simple really, and it thinks, this is a person, and I know this person as a living being, and they were a living being hours ago. Now this person is not. But this doesn’t make sense. You stare at that dead body, stare so hard, and you see an eye twitch, you see the chest rise, then fall. A breath. It’s not too late. Do not be fooled. People say, that’s natural, that’s part of the process. What they should tell you is to look in short bursts. Do not look for long periods of time because you will convince yourself that what you imagined is real and that your loved one is still warm because they are living, not because your hand has been resting upon their cold skin for twenty minutes. Grab her slippers, zombie grandma is going to get up and make us breakfast.

No. No, no, no.

It is amazing how quickly you adjust when something so precious is snatched away. you hold on to any cosmic concession like a dog to a bone, building a fallacy in the crepuscular interim of “what happens next?”. Okay, you say. my loved one was here one moment, and now there is just the vessel. Okay. I can live with this. Okay. Your mind, that helpful little fuck, will make you believe that you can live with this body in this bed, and you cover it, or uncover it, or lie next to It, touch It, talk around It, talk to It, laugh with It, have coffee around It, sit-sit-sit with It until the doorbell rings, and it’s the morticians and there here to pick it up.

And now you’re back to square one.

walking home.

after the face

ade of the even

ing has worn

  off

laquer left on coat lapels

and lips pressed to glasses           inches

from    a    kiss,

I am flat footed

and stumbling

      home

arms crossed

head tilted to the

                              right

against the wind

in my mind 

it is your shoulder

on which

I

          am

resting

and my arms

crossed again

st my      chest

are to keep the         shards

of heart inside

so that I      do 

not           vomit 

them

                    up

and              cut

                    my

                 tongue. 

Sandwiches

it’s how you fed us

when there was

nothing

to

feed us:

lots of mustard, bitter and yellow,

ham, wrapped in white paper, from la carniceria,

crunchy iceburg lettuce, greens and

whites,

which you insisted on using, because

wasting is sinful.

we ate so many sandwiches,

us nietos,

gnawing on the crusty bolillo

that cut the roof of our mouths,

barefoot, stomachs rumbling.

this was our manna,

magic food

that came from the money

you found on your walks

around the neighborhood

where you prayed to God

to find a crumpled-up twenty,

overlooked by the junkies.

Twenty years later

and my tears are bitter,

like the mustard,

and the whites of the iceberg,

and I am walking around my neighborhood

praying to a God I no longer know

to make you a miracle,

for old time’s sake,

and in return

i will always drop a twenty,

crumpled tiny and round

to the ground

for a grandmother to find

when she must feed her nietos,

I will drop all my twenties

and tens

and fives

and ones

I will drop them all

because I can’t imagine

my children not knowing

these sandwiches

nor the Ita who made them.

Second Dream

It is in the shadow of twilight that I feel you,

moving like water up my thighs

hot and thick,

your sweet breath,

spreading my partitions 

with a silver tongue. 

your fingers move like hammers

striking my strings 

and the notes ring out from my throat,

the sweat collects in the small of my back.

I imagine a pendulum, heavy and strong 

undulating under me,

palpitations and panting

need and kneading press like hands in soft earth

and you are swelling to the sound 

of your name

in my mouth

deep like an animal

as i grow vermillion

petals wet and unfurling

opening 

ready

and then I awake.

I am alone.

the morning is grey.

and the dream is gone.

Cubes

Origin 

This is the story of how I changed my structure

 

The earth is fresh and loamy, 

the breeze smells of hopeful what-ifs, 

like summer, 

like birth. 

I have seen you, 

wrapped in newspaper on the streets 

where even the stars aren’t free, 

shit-stained grinning like a bobcat, 

lost for words, 

eyes polished dull, 

skin brown and dusty, 

scars and lines like roadmaps of the border 

  cross here, rest here, run here - 

and I loved you. 

Not as yourself,

 but what you could be, 

I loved your what-if, 

like a frigate bird, 

red-breasted and proud, 

blood-throated beauty. 

 

Bleed for me, beautiful

communal sacrifice 

for the transplant community

a gift to your conquerers

the hourglass has turned 

and the dregs are now the cream

the Bottoms, now the top

 

This space forms the shape of the years, 

sharp like animal bones,

 coming skittish and unkind, 

violet and reddened, 

thick and sticky 

with the ooze of failed expectation. 

I am watching you,

 I watch closely,

 as you watch me. 

Your eyes are screaming,

 they are saying one thing:

 we are not safe here. we are not safe here. 

 

 

 

Reflection

 

This city is a murder scene

I am the body you’re trying to hide.

 

I woke up this morning 

from another dream 

taking place 

in my childhood home. 

 

That’s two in a row, so far. 

In my dreams, 

my home is dark, 

destroyed. 

 

All of our things, 

plates, 

cups, 

toys, 

broken 

on the floor. 

water stains, 

mold. 

I woke up with my mouth sticky 

and caked with the residue of 

bad decisions. 

gun powder stain. 

I woke up this morning 

and eased my legs 

out from the sheets; 

they are tired, 

sore, 

and covered 

with nebulous bruises 

blossoming in all colors 

like the birth 

of a thousand galaxies.

 Something has to die 

for something else to begin.

 

I am climbing out of my mouth. 

I am pulling out my teeth, 

one by one, 

saving the white ones, 

the rest I will throw in the river, 

let the fish eat them, 

let them cut their throats 

on the sharpest ones. 

I am tearing out my hair, 

coarse and curly, 

braiding, 

knotting. 

It will make a decent rope.

 I am skinning my arms,

 my legs,

 my chest, 

the fat I throw at stray dogs. 

They lap hungrily, 

snarling, growling. 

The skin, mottled with  bruises and scars, 

I dry. 

I am breaking off my fingers,

 one by one, 

saving the smallest bones;

 I will sew a bag from my skin, 

I will make a slingshot from my ribs, 

weapons and tools from my bones, 

a bowl from my skull. 

I will cut cut cut 

until the whole 

becomes a collection of parts, 

useful and loved by someone, 

in a way they were never by me.

 

 

 Something has to die 

for something else to begin.

 

Climax

 

Freeze me 

and 

smash me 

into a million pieces 

so that 

I may melt and move freely

 about the earth again, 

seeping into the loamy cracks 

and nooks where 

no one sees. 

I wish to be invisible, 

if I cannot be transparent, 

moving with the 

grace 

and 

fluidity 

of one who lives behind the eyes, 

a shadow in one’s retina. 

Let me sit forever 

under the skirt of a tree, 

sweating the patina 

of a million attempts at perfect, 

until it covers me,

hard like a shell, 

wherein I shall melt, 

and flow into the roots.

 

 I am no longer welcome here.

I walk barefoot on the broken

promises and hopes we shared,

I eat the shards,

my mouth overflowing with blood,

red lips,

like a starlet.

 

Bind your feet with ribbons

and you will walk again,

away,

under the canopy of hands,

gentle caressing.

They will guide you to a world

 

where I will never follow. 

 

 I am fire tonight.

My teeth are sharp,

my throat is thick with rabid spit.

Gather your molded shells,

your store-bought lace,

your pre-stamped stones

and run, run, run

little bird.

I am the snake that slithers by your dainty feet

I taste your scent, and retch. 

I will find you,

little bird,

strung and painted 

tawdry and cheap

plaster-cast in fabricated authenticity,

trembling in your frippery,

stained by your putrescence.

 

I will recall how we are nam-ed things:

A name is one’s desire for that which is named,

a desire unrequited, uninvited, and ultimately abandoned

by your chrysalis heart, sticky and breathing, 

beating at your breast.

 

May the Bridges I burn Light the way,