Recuerdo, Mentira, and Dreams

I am thinkng about using this design for the cover of my Spanish writing portfolio.

Superstition

The umbrella
(hastily opened by Mrs. Caroline B. Simms in the
stairwell on her Bronx, New York apartment complex)
shot outward
like the blooming petals of a glistening
black bat,
splashing misfortune
(in droplets)
onto the crown molding,
along the grout between the spotted tiles,
and onto the dial of the watch of a passing stranger

(whom Mrs. Simms had seen several
times, darting through the entry, his face downcast,
brooding under curly hair, behind glasses).

Some time after, the young man realized his watch had frozen,
(such a senseless, sighing, sort of thing)
Stricken dead at 1:13 on the dot
(or at least somewhere near it).

Mrs. Simms, however,
made her own startling realization almost immediately
upon stepping outside.



(Half an hour earlier it had quit raining.)

The Intro of a Play in Progress

Clytemnæstra

Curtain. Sunset in un barrio of any American city. The streets are aglow with fading red light. Two hours earlier, offstage, a woman was mugged. Around the corner little girls skip rope and sing novela themesongs to themselves. They try on their mothers’ lipstick in the mirror, smiling faintly. A bum wanders across the stage and curses in Spanish. This neighborhood is loose, simmering, hot with the squeak of skinny black cats and the buzz of power lines. The kitchen and dining room of a modest family home fill the background of stage left. The living room, floral sofa patched so well one barely notices, covers stage right and the gravel steps lead from the house’s front door to the sidewalk that extends along the front of the stage.
A young latino man appears, wielding a can of spray paint with a red top. He shakes it and turns to a solid brick wall that forms a side of the house. He is dressed thuggishly: a heavy leather coat, stocking cap, and baggy jeans. His eyes betray an age and wisdom otherwise contradicted. He sighs deeply and lashes a rough red line of paint across the wall, shouting

CHORAGOS: (In a rhythm that is first broken, then smooth, agonized, his voice imbued with a quality like that a newsman reporting a death)
Sangre!
Por las calles corrió ese día infernal
Que,
A la hora precisa, el asqueroso puñal
Se metió
a la misma vez en tres
(beat)
Corazones Perdidos.
(beat)
El golpe mortal
Tan pronto llegó en el día que ella
Al señor se vengó.
(beat)
Familia bendita…¿qué les pasó?
(beat)
Del amor y venganza, de lo todo les canto
De la suerte que se fue ese día insano
De cómo él vino, el sucio fin
Y cómo pasó lo todo a Clytemnaestra the Queen.
(beat)
Sigue.

He exits, solemnly. The line of red, which resembled a jagged wound, disappears for the time being. A clear, pleasant days dawns on the street. The inside of the house is invisible.

After, Luna, Plots

After
my mother died, I lived with my dad for a few months, helping him sort out her things. I slept in the bed of my childhood. Dad slept on the sofa.
One day, he wandered into the kitchen, still in his bathrobe to say,
"I reckon the attic has got to be cleaned."
I didn’t mention the stack of dishes that extended, dense like a tree, from the sink bottom. Ignored the sea of photos on the mantel that ebbed and flowed under seven weeks of dust. Yes, the attic did need cleaning, I told him.
"You sure you don’t mind this?" He asked me later that day. I had just emerged from the garage, dressed in my housework clothes. Gloves to prevent spider bites.
"Mind what?"
"All of this."
"No, daddy," I felt so weak, so small that I still called him that. "I don’t mind at all."
"You got a job., a boss and a secretary and everything."
"They don’t mind either."
He sighed. The room grew heavy. "I’m gettin’ old."
I took his hand, squeezed it tight. Through the gloves, I couldn’t feel that warm, loose quality of his skin. Still, the bones were there, somewhat smaller for wear.
"Well, there’s no shame in that."
There had been a time when I grabbed one of his fingers with my entire fist.

Luna
I lost my mind to the green rain,
and decided to take a bath.

Plots
I bought the coat for fifteen dollars, charging it to a card that I would not answer to. It smelled of a history, so I dowsed it in my own cologne, yet still pondered leaving the thrift store price tag attached. On the way home, I realized that the pockets were deep—deep enough to hide any number of things: a role of tape, a pickaxe, maybe a vial of poison or two.
I remembered Rico on Crown street, who would sell me any from a case of pistols, breaking federal regulation for the exchange of a few words in accented Spanglish. I could buy it now, with that same card, I smiled, and have the thing done in time for vodka and coffee at six. I would fold the coat up, hide in a drawer, never speak of it again, and laugh to myself about how it—the crime—had been so cheap. The coat so quick. I glimpsed my own reflection in a pawnshop window. I liked the danger, flipping coins.
A map of the world is sewn into the coat’s lining. Sometimes it is nice to play games. Here there be dragons, there sirens. There Charybdis sucks you down three, but no more, times a day into something black and slimy cold.
In my mind, the sun had set and a strange figure in a big black coat moves like a shade along the pavement. Later I would laugh to myself about it how it had all been so easy—the madness so cheap, the coat so quick.

To Prep School Girls in Boots

Dear girls,
You probably don’t know my name.

It’s me.
The one who smiles when you saunter past on the sidewalk, admires you from behind an
upside down newspaper
he with the notebook who
Alone
writes chants of devotion.

You are, to me,
myths
after everything
wonders
dressed in denim and confidence,
that know well the secrets
of physics
calculus
[integrate me]
and the art
of makeup.
Tell me more, more
everything and more.

about your vacations in Africa
Swahili class
about your favorite bookstores in New York

And where you bought the boots.
It’s just that I’ve been wondering
This question like a prayer
During autumn nights
When I see you running
And count you for dreams

Can we still talk
like equals
Across
all this?

Is there a tiny space
among the bands,
plane tickets
lattés, mochas
poetry
polo boys
cello lessons

between Plato and Versace
might there be room for
me?
Sincerely,

An Explication of the Body as the Second Actuality

it got cold real quick, you know.
drama?
your momma.
fuck all y’all,
yea,

I ain’t got time for no one but
Molière
and the air.

and you think you see?
man, this could be
be
be
be
enough.
rough.

give back my stuff.

na na na
je quitte tout ça.

hey hey hey
yea,

and shit.