II.
SUNDAYS AFTER BREAKFAST: A LESSON IN COTTON PICKING
It was a kind
of dance: feet
shuffling in dust,
fluttering
hands like birds:
nest-building:
blood staining
brown birds red.
Cotton sacks, twelve
feet long,
dragging behind
like a tongueâ
fat and slow
as sun.
I watch him:
slow weep
of his eye
remembering
the girl whoâd name
and nurse
nine children.
He picks
my grandma
by the color
of her dress,
her eyes,
and because sheâs lucky,
not
by how much cotton
she can pick.
PUT ATTENTION
Put attention, grandma would say, as if attention
were a packet of salt to be sprinkled, or a mound
we could scoop out of a carton like ice cream.
Put attention, put attention. Put it where? In her hands?
In the percolator? On top of the television set
that seeps fat red lips and Mexican moustaches?
Next to the jade Buddha? Between La Virgen and Cousin
Pabloâs sixth-grade class photoâmarshmallowy teeth
jumping out of his mouth? We never corrected her.
Like the breast, Spanish lulled grandmaâs tongue, as we threw
down shards of English, laughing, for her to leap in and around.
Put attention, put attention. Put it where?
Shall I put attention in my glass and drink it soft like Montepulciano
dâAbruzzo? Like Shiner Bock? Horchata? Put attention.
Ponga atenciĂłn, she tried to say in our language.
Put attention somewhere large. Back into her eyes.
In the part of her brain that doesnât remember her own
daughters, how to make rice, translate instructions.
ONE MANâS NAME: COLONIZATION OF THE POETIC
vi.
When you shove yourself into my throat,
the words I know become foreign, jagged.
A new race forms between the soft palate
and the base of my tongue. A pregnant mouth,
I carry you there, where words form:
I sew flags like babies.
BREASTS
It happens quickly.
Two pulpy, pink beads
swathed in skin soft as calf leather
rise, unfurling like a turquoise
spring. They are curious, pushy.
Not long before they take the reins,
manlike, no highway too bitter, no hand
too rough. Such resilient cups,
though raw against the scruff.
Most will tame
themselves, humble, swoop in a seasoned
bow, learn to fill up and empty out, calming
children, men. Theyâll wear, wiltâ
sweet as burnt milk.
The tarnish can be rubbed away.
I leave mine. Evidence of easing
down the horse.
ODE TO MY BOOTS
Like San Antonio, bronze in the face, white
sky, timid green inlay of nopal, red flores.
I trace running stitch in swirl at the shaft,
finger the leathered sole. Like a shot of tequila,
you courage me up from the toes, delicate
grubs in tomato plants. You render me incognito
among men, ferocious among women who sit
cross-legged in their spiked disarmament.
With you, I navigate bridges; mi coyote on the border,
my twin lanterns. You wake in me the dormant cells,
the not-so-ancient history of Texas,
its womenâslipping into something more:
vaquera, embroidered crown, umbilicus.
Both male and femaleâthat knowing.
ODE TO A SKEIN OF RED EMBROIDERY THREAD
Like the veined underleaf
of the New England maple,
but better. Slick, nuzzled
against your brothers, your sisters.
Brilliant head and feet curled
up like newborns, rosebuds
in anticipation. Revolution
in your six-stranded veinsâ
how I cherish you, envy you:
your potential, your ability
to become saint or star, bird or bear,
the name of a lover, mapped star
for the warrior, sprawling red palace
upon which the head can rest.
ONE MANâS NAME: CO...