bopis

I'm a foreigner and that sounded to me like a long bad word involving the privates of parents, the purported unorthodox sexual habits, the feces of rainbow tropical birds, and the hidden name of the local god. Commiserate. Then the natives explained the word to me, showed me their people, what their people eat and don't eat, what their educated spend for art. They showed me what they killed. They whispered shame. I understood, and I grew the white skin of these natives who said commiserate. I knew that evil needed all four syllables.

Etiquetas: woman19

This is how it came
How I earned the dance
Someone had to slip
A boy jumping jacks
Never had the chance

I saw how he stepped up

This is how it came
How I learned to kiss
Someone had to lie
A man mouthing love
When he won my lips

I did not hear him sigh

This is how it came
The how of music
How the song arrived
A tear was whistling
A tune down my cheek

I heard how it survived

All nightingales are false
Parrots are blasphemers
The true bird of sorrow
It has no throat for song

Hunger, always and always
I shall never taste your name

The lady of the night?
Or the sweetly sick rose?
That loneliest petal
It spits out no perfume

Hunger, always and always
I shall never taste your name

Neither the salt of tears
Nor the bite of syrup
For the saddest water
Is much too pure to flow

Your eye, your skin, your shadow
Your scent, your spirit, your voice
These, what I shall never know
Here, what I shall never know

Hunger, always and only
I shall never eat your name

(Prof Gemini Lozada, 33, Psychology teacher)

must’ve been a storm of swerves
on a hot night
needing no sirens
on dry screech asphalt

only a van to Veterans’
hospital, AM, one
a freshly dead
a body arriving from bodies in hiding

alive
must’ve been a run
of tire and turbine and eye
of night to night to night

heeding no dawn break
just a long black rolling

must’ve been out and away
from a panic of fingers and hair
of so many small wars within the ribs
of the wet butts of cigarettes

away
from the hailstorm of dreams it must’ve been
bludgeoning scalps down to skulls

swerves of
testosterone and sweat tendon muscle
testosterone and pus

must’ve been a conspiracy of boys
a societal envy of menses
with the cigarette smoke that clings to the hair
of slap happy boys hungry boys becoming

smoke
of a van delivering
up and away
a long gone van to Veterans’
where the mothers shall arrive

and many tiny boys

must’ve been

Already I have forgotten why I did not come. My excuse must have been all-important, whatever it was. Yes, significant. Else, why did I miss her cerveza negra hair? Why forgo the sheen that only my throat could see? One reason or another, I failed to come. Maybe she remembers? Maybe I told her, before or after the fact, hey, I’m sorry I couldn’t come, but did I say because? Would I inflict her with the irritation of things valid? Of course I am sure I apologized, one I’m sorry or other. That cannot be helped. Out of arrogance, absence wants to be noted. All words are things we wear to conceal our skins aging with thirst. We resort to the courtesy of exquisite masks. My thirst for her is a porcelain sigh.

Etiquetas: woman19

What I have for you is the clear soup of my mind. No animal or alphabet noodles. No herb or spice kept secret. None of the poison distilled by assassins from the oil of almonds. You have been a good friend despite your ill-tempered jealousies. You have been a companion even when I detested love. Please understand my willingness to be of service, for it is a full-bodied intent untainted by the wish for graver friendship. The clear soup of my mind is what I have for you. You will find that for all its native heat you will not taste hot water.

Etiquetas: woman19

-some-day have connections leading
jobs leading to leader connections
tradition: excellence

-end up marrying a sis
or not marrying a sister
initiation: honor

or not having the courage to confess
his love
tradition: strength

-ascend and sigma
summing up to his diploma
initiation: excellence

-attend reunions at hotels
alumni homecomings
tradition: a heart

at the mothering university
and brotherhood at cafes
initiation: kidneys

-bother to speak of Mendez
or not bother to speak of Cris
tradition: a liver

(Nevertheless, they must possess
the ironed out rites and attires
for this, right? No one is that poor.)

a some-thing that happened way back
when he was seriously being young
initiation: a brain

or leading to leader connections
or not proving courage to confess
tradition: a penis

any-way the Rhoan will
one-day father
initiation.