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ILLEGAL
1.
She shares a room
with eight strangers.
None of them know where
to get money grams.
Back home the girls need food.
Her face flushes
at the grocery store
but she still looks straight
into my eyes and asks:
Can I walk there?
Which way is it?
2.
Jobs are scarce,
so he eats what he finds
in the dumpster near
the house, squats on a vacant
lot that floods in autumn.
He doesn't say it,
but he's scared of fever.
He knows that if he dies,
back home, Juan will stop by
the bar for drinks and flick
a few quarters in the jukebox.
Jose will tell dirty jokes
at his wake until three or four
in the morning, while Pedro
recounts the story of the irate
husband shooting at his naked ass
flying over the fence.
But here, he doesn't have
a name, he's constantly
cold and unnoticed.
3.
It is difficult to ignore
the wet clothes on the woman's back
as she enters la migra's office
for a 24 hour stay.
She's too alarmed to remember
the two daughters left behind.
Officers bring tamarind flavored
snowballs, try to douse
her dehydration.
They wick the sweat off
her breast, keep her armpits
from staining the dress.
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THE PROBLEM WITH BOREDOM
Fish shacks made out of wood scraps
and old rusted zinc sheets, these were
the houses I remembered most.
Their nooks and crannies resonated
under the weight of children at play,
scratching the linoleum floors.
Bats flew into the living room
for a ringside seat of a dubbed
Perry Mason rerun.
I'd cover my hair and scream.
Living was often in black and white,
no worse than mother making us wash
our hands every time we walked
in the house. We had more
handkerchiefs than shoes.
I'd stop by the pharmacy
on my way home from school
to eye the records, Zippos, and Bulovas.
Bought my first Beatles album there,
swapped that Bulova my aunt
gave me on my 13th birthday
for Vetiver. Days were as slow
as a horse showing up
in our living room on a hot,
rainy day. It wouldn't move,
it just stood there for as long
as it rained, three or four days.
Mother would scream: shoot it.
I'd wait until it dropped dead.
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