MAHIRAP ESTAR NUEVA
On Zzyzx, I mourn myself in a monsoon
while a friend formulates epistemologies of boyhood:
from a point of youth, a crochet hook
it is hard to be new.
The man who lived is the man who died,
cherry tomatoes to ghost lines,
joy to the other side.
Suffering and rejoicing often look the same.
White sacred thornapple awake
in the nightshade: devil’s trumpet,
jimsonweed, moonflower, hells bells
it comes to be given so many names,
but the poison remains the same.
Desert copia one memory palace.
Whole hillsides magnificent in golden barrels
faithfully risk everything for the rain.
And it comes.
In a private community pool, I swim
in my underwear with four women hardly known.
My jolting legs a shallow root system,
hands frantic at water’s edge for the cosmic.
My body is no different: I am often half hopeful
for night and hungry to eat shadows.
These engravings in quartz must proclaim
a living vow to all the little sunworshippers
to always hold up these hills, to give a man
the opportunity of doing a thing,
you say memoria,
I contend faithfully risk everything again.
