Bosque

Poems

Michelle Otero

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780826362704
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Nestled in the heart of Albuquerque is a vibrant cottonwood forest that has flourished for centuries along the Río Grande—providing a home for porcupines, migratory birds, coyotes, and other wildlife as well as a sanctuary for its city residents. Today, in the midst of climate change and the slow drying of the river, the bosque struggles to remain vibrant. As a former Albuquerque Poet Laureate, Michelle Otero champions this beloved Albuquerque treasure. In her debut poetry collection, Bosque, she celebrates the importance of water and the bosque to the people of Albuquerque. Otero shares her reflections on the high desert—where she is rooted, where she draws her strength, and where she has flourished—and she invites readers to do the same.

Little House 4 Sale

A particleboard sign leans against the Tuff Shed

Johnny flipped to a loft,

letters spray-painted red

Little House

4 Sale

$7000

This is home, inside the bent elbow of a road

without sidewalks, the remains of land

divided and subdivided. March through

October the acequia runs behind him,

his dad’s house next door, close enough to hit

with butts flicked off his porch.

One afternoon the cleanest white

truck Johnny ever saw pulled

up and parked, so close he could touch

the grill from where he sat on a kitchen chair

on his concrete stoop. He smoked American Legends

while a woman ran an electric

razor over his neck hairs.

¿Y esa mujer? Skin the color of Crown Royal poured into tight jeans,

she walks the road with no sidewalks to Casa Liquors, the corner

store, the tire shops on Bridge. Her hips sway like a cobra under

a charmer’s spell, her hips the cobra and the spell.

He had never seen the driver but could tell

he was all official y todo

from the logo on the door, the words

Bernalillo County, State of New Mexico

made a circle around a blue sky

that matched the vato’s button shirt. A zia sun

warmed white sheep on a green field

or maybe they’re cows?

in two lines like they’re marching to a matanza

why don’t they eat the grass?

The vato closed the truck door,

pulled a tape measure off his belt. Johnny asked,

Hey bro, you gonna put us some sidewalks?

By the time the truck pulled away,

Johnny had six months to move. Turns out

he’s squatting on county land. To think

they never would have noticed, if

his dad hadn’t pitched a roof

without a permit

on his cinderblock casita, blocking the neighbors’

mountain view, neighbors from the street with green

grass and coyote fences, nice people who retire in a

fixer-upper that a from-here family can’t afford

to keep

or maybe they could, but why when

you get more house on the west side

and it’s new?

Those neighbors spent

a year battling permits and zoning

just to build a higher fence separating their acre

from the likes of Johnny and his shed.

On land that isn’t really his, he turned

a clothesline post into a chin-up bar,

made a fence of elm trunks the Army Corps

tagged orange for removal from the bosque

they didn’t mean removal by him.

Warm afternoons he sits on the trunk, waves

at passing cars, flags down La Cobra for a cigarette

or smack or some

other favorcito.

He wears track pants and chanclas

with worn heels. He wears loose tank tops

that hang over his belly. He wears

a rhinestone cross on a gold chain.

Johnny, a close-cut fade,

as much gray as black now,

his face always shiny. He’s

not bad-looking. Not really. Dark

eyes, full cheeks and lips,

the scab in his brow hardening,

like mud he could wash

with spit and his finger. Not

fat, no pués. . . . He should

eat better. He should stop

smoking. He should take

the meds they gave him

at the clinic.

He hasn’t held a job since

Social Security declared him disabled,

his body strong, but the mind

flies in strange directions. He forgets

which pill to take when. He shouldn’t drink.

He fills prescriptions with what’s flowing

at the confluence of acequia and pavement,

miniatures from Casa Liquors, spice at

the head shop on Bridge and La Vega, and chiva

delivered to your door.

For a season he harvests rainbow

chard, yellow pear tomatoes and golden

beets at a neighbor’s farm. His boss grew

up on the same ditch, wears diamondstud

earrings, a barbed-wire tattoo on

his bicep. The farm is a backyard and

fallow fields turned a generation ago

from beans and chile to alfalfa and sorghum

more money, less work feeding animals than people.

Johnny says, Eeeee, I never ate so many vegetables.

The tank top hangs lower

as his belly shrinks. Maybe he can stop

taking metformin. Maybe he can get off

the lurasidone. Maybe when he gets paid

he’ll take his nephew crawdad

fishing on the ditch. Maybe someday

buy himself a little scooter

you know, just to get around.

Maybe one Saturday at the market

he’ll find him a nice lady.

At sunrise the farmers pull up

in the boss’s pickup, diesel gurgling.

Horn honks for Johnny to take his place

in back with the tiller, the boss’s

sheepdog, and Freddy from Lake Street

who can’t drive no more ’cause h...