Poetry

Every day there’s the bay, every day, every night, once, it was Estero de Jaltepec:

Christmas, flew home packaged like a gift. Beneath my jeans a childlike padding. Came to adore the wee god, his dolorous mother.

it’s procedure to inspect 
the ass of an immigrant kid

undress put this gown on
the doctor will be here soon

Hidden in a dim stall as the muezzin called
all worshipers to prayer, I touched privately
the indelible stain.

She says she lit a candle and placed it under my balls when I was born
because they were too big,

If you had asked me, thirteen, what I wanted
to be one day, I wouldn’t have said it.

In the end, everything turns out
right, like the last ten verses
of Job, where rings are given
in supplication and apology. Where sheep

My reward for waking: close walls
and limestone dust, spit
evaporating from my tongue. First

I count and recount
my toes, throw out grain
for the carp, snatch a femur

We stack wafers the length of our arms
in half-hour rotations, inspect the chocolate coats.
You’ve eaten a Kit Kat before-—at least
you’ve seen them on newsstands next to gum,
but this isn’t about the finished product.
This is about the factory...

The peonies are popping! A fist that is also a kettle that is also
A pact petals made with whatever cabal of bees decides to stick

Around. Let’s all us shake on it. Ah, these lungs of mine the perfect
Emergency orange of extension cord coil...