First chunkage of poetry.

Business Man Origami

Between Atocha and Sol he was practicing

Business Man Origami.

The newspaper pages thin like sheets of puff pastry

folded in a fashion I will never master.

He did not turn a single gray page but rather,

top meets bottom, headline to crossword,

left corner meets right side –

“Nuevo Banco” to “Rebaja!”

from the pages full of screaming

for economic exchange.

I know he sees me watching

his busy hands manipulate

this layered informant—

the rituals I will never understand,

ones only known by men in sharply-fastened ties,

tied together by Metro Stops and business card swaps,

saved for women who adorn their slender hips

with pencil skirts, hair pulled tight in Samurai buns—

We Mean Business.

He sips his black “to-go,” ignores a phone call

(Appear Busy) and folds once more

bottom right corner to back middle to “Puente se Prende Fuego.”

And I wonder

who taught him this ancient art

of charming strangers and defying physics.

What other secrets do you keep

tucked away in the inner pocket

of your navy blazer,

next to the picture of your wife

and fresh pack of Marlboros?

The Summer I Met Picasso

He reminds me of my father. In black and white

his hands like those which taught mine

to move, press against a wall of glass,

his face behind the fog on the window

but I still see his eyes, like the ones

that taught mine to see. But his eyes

are smaller, small like love notes

wrapped in a Travis Tritt bandana

we found in Daddy’s dresser,

third drawer down, the day my sisters

and I dug like bums through dumpsters,

hungry for clues, desperate for everything,

seeking anything to keep us alive.

We dug through secrets,

secrets to find him, secrets like those whispered

in heavy brush strokes of a war once fought and the lady

with the green face, like an alien, alien

like my father now. Did friends of his

children (did he have kids?) call him alien,

like mine do? Did people label him

insane, or genius? Or whatever it is

that fits between, like me,
the one in the middle, like him.

In the drawers we found a deck of cards,

women of a generation before us,

nude with legs spread, like the legs spread

on and across the wall of the museum, in charcoal.

I think to the vaginas in my hallway

framed in black and how they were born from

the face of the crying mother and bodies

of tangled lovers I see now. I cannot

figure him out. But I know him, know

because I know my father-

a mystery, a mess, a madman,

a man mad to blur lines and break

the glass that traps all of us maniacs,

the two clear reflections of one another

in my broken head.

The Bible Never Covered Underwear

Would Jesus would be disappointed

if he knew I’m wearing Victoria’s Secret panties

in the Vatican, knowing I slipped on my bad intentions

when I thought about, and didn’t think about,

the drummer boy who kisses me

in the backseat of my sky blue Oldsmobile

an ocean away? And how if he were here

his calloused fingertips would graze my hips,

pass over fabric, feeling outlines of angel woven

boy-shorts through my linen pants.

But he’s not here.

Would the son of man disapprove of my bad habits

and teach me lessons in being a better

person? Or would Jesus understand

the way I need his body to lay by my side

leaving my prayers to be a whisper of “Thank God”

as his breath sweeps across my cheek

to leave me at peace?

Would he understand

that today my underwear

matters? Just in case.
Naked

I was staying in a hotel

room (253) long term,

on business, near but

outside Madrid.

On Tuesdays the maid

(Maria, her name tag read)

would come to my room

and replace the old white sheets

with new white sheets

matching her small

slip-ons that squeaked

down the hallway in perfect

harmony with her cart

of lemon-scented cleaning products.

We would make small talk

in broken Spanglish,

relying on hand gestures

and forced smiles to find

a peace between our

misunderstandings.

But one day, that day,

my maid walked in my room

without knocking, only to see

my naked body in front of her.

We don’t say much
anymore. But since that day

Maria has been quiet

and my sheets have been blue.

Styrka Genom Systerförbund

And so the parable goes:

By the spring… people were desperate to end the war.
Six legs, Twelve legs, Eighteen legs, small and dark. The black charred backs
of moppet refugees surviving in their asylum of filth,
the three found comfort in old shoes and the steel bowl of festering compost,
under boxes forgotten on back porches, in soiled hand-me-downs
and vacant half gallon cans of Juicy Juice. Always close by lounged Papa Walrus
drunk and jolly, a haven for the scared pests, numbers 1, 2, and 3.
The three would scurry when the red clouds came, the air would quiet
and the three would flee, find a place between the pages of twice-read novels
and surrendered bottles of wine. Walrus would watch
and wait and laugh, familiar with the clouds, familiar with their passing.
Papa Walrus would promise the three new air some day.
That Tuesday the air came the three crawled from their shelter
And breathed it in. And the Walrus said “You are safe. We are safe.”
The storm came sudden, red clouds and then black
like the mushrooms in the abandoned murk of the garden.

She raged for what seemed a lifetime and the three

stood exposed without even the most pathetic sanctuary

to keep safe their scarred, scared bodies.
The walrus sat idly by, fearful for the first time,

quiet and still.
The bottles, the shells, the spaces, the pages-
the safest places permeated by the poison.
Caverns of terror.
Lice fleas shells caves corpses blood liquor mice.
The radiation rendered the Walrus
helpless, suffocated, and sober.
And the sun never came
and it wouldn’t matter anymore.
It is we who are doing the fighting now.
The three stood as the radiation
flooded the sewage they once called home. Once their palaces of
fermenting forgiveness now relinquished to the power of red cloud and brutal rape
of the storm they never expected but always knew was coming.
Their shells scratched. Their homes gone. This battle over. Their war won.
It was a blood bath on both sides, a glimpse of hell.
And the walrus forgot how to laugh.
And the three learned.
Six legs. Twelve legs. Eighteen legs together.

The three alive and alone, as Papa Walrus could not comfort

anyone, anymore. Silence replaced his once constant

laughter. The three knew. And they escaped

to a new pile of filth, a new retreat to call home.

When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you.
And this is my pathetic need to exaggerate the desolation.
Are you listening? Forgotten promises of better times,
A drained vitality haunt those who know
And those who can’t. What have I learned?
I am a cockroach. We are the cockroach.
“I’m crying- I’m crying I’m crying.”

Things I Think About Before I Pee

I’m not wearing pants and it’s cold in this room. Breakfast. He left

his sock in my room, like some backward Cinderella, only this time

the ugly stepmother is a middle aged woman who hasn’t been laid

in a decade… or more. He can’t sleep with somebody there, he says.

The floor hurts and all I remember is dirty bathroom sink

water and freckled shoulders. I’ve never written the word

“shoulders” down in my life. You know, I had my own desk

and I covered it in crayons- I wanted to use the red pen but all I could find

was the pink one, too light to read. I don’t know what subconscious means

and I don’t know a lick of Spanish but I know breakfast is at eight.

They were all on acid and everyone was crying- Devin talking about being born

from the backs of our brothers and rainbows being the reason we can’t buy unicorns

at Wal Mart or anywhere. I stared at a tree for fifteen minutes the other morning

and my skin started cracking like bark. There is no metaphor but my whole body.

My alarm, the alarm was just trying to help but I threw it at the floor onto the prayer

rug. It is very cold here in the morning maybe just today maybe just

right now but sleeping people lie cry die. Do you think his feet were cold?

Breakfast. Right.