Francisco X. Alarcón

words are birds that arrive with books and spring they love clouds the wind and trees some words are messengers that come from far away from distant lands for them there are no borders only stars moon and sun some words are familiar like canaries others are exotic like the quetzal bird some can stand the cold others migrate with the sun to the south some words die caged— they're difficult to translate and others build nests have chicks warm them feed them teach them how to fly and one day they go away in flocks the letters on this page are the prints they leave by the sea

crossed in despair many deserts full of hope carrying their empty fists of sorrow everywhere mouthing a bitter night of shovels and nails “you’re nothing you’re shit your home’s nowhere”— mountains will speak for you rain will flesh your bones green again among ashes after a long fire started in a fantasy island some time ago turning Natives into aliens

I want a god as my accomplice who spends nights in houses of ill repute and gets up late on Saturdays a god who whistles through the streets and trembles before the lips of his lover a god who waits in line at the entrance of movie houses and likes to drink café au lait a god who spits blood from tuberculosis and doesn’t even have enough for bus fare a god knocked unconscious by the billy club of a policeman at a demonstration a god who pisses out of fear before the flaring electrodes of torture a god who hurts to the last bone and bites the air in pain a jobless god a striking god a hungry god a fugitive god an exiled god an enraged god a god who longs from jail for a change in the order of things I want a more godlike god

XII once again I look out your window and the world looks oddly different, maybe the fields have blossomed, or perhaps more stars have been born delirious waves caress my feet, something new, unknown, sunsets whisper in my ear as well, everywhere I find your odor, your shape you are among old-growth pines, in the fog along the coastal rocks, around the most somber of afternoons impossible to wipe away your job from my eyes, from my sad mouth— you are the universe made flesh

I there has never been sunlight for this love, like a crazed flower it buds in the dark, is at once a crown of thorns and a spring garland around the temples a fire, a wound, the bitterest of fruit, but a breeze as well, a source of water, your breath—a bite to the soul, your chest—a tree trunk in the current make me walk on the turbid waters, be the ax that breaks this lock, the dew that weeps from trees if I become mute kissing your thighs, it’s that my heart eagerly searches your flesh for a new dawn

my shoes rest all night under my bed tired they stretch and loosen their laces wide open they fall asleep and dream of walking they revisit the places they went to during the day and wake up cheerful relaxed so soft

to forty-six UC Santa Cruz students and seven faculty arrested in Watsonville for showing solidarity with two thousand striking cannery workers who were mostly Mexican women, October 27, 1985 “Mexican” is not a noun or an adjective “Mexican” is a life long low-paying job a check mark on a welfare police form more than a word a nail in the soul but it hurts it points it dreams it offends it cries it moves it strikes it burns just like a verb

April 1992 something was wrong when buses didn't come streets were no longer streets how easy hands became weapons blows gunfire rupturing the night the more we run the more we burn o god show us the way lead us spare us from ever turning into walking matches amidst so much gasoline

some say I'm now almost extinct in this park but the people who say this don't know that by smelling the orchids in the trees they're sensing the fragrance of my chops that by hearing the rumbling of the waterfalls they're listening to my ancestors' great roar that by observing the constellations of the night sky they're gazing at the star spots on my fur that I am and always will be the wild untamed living spirit of this jungle

is a meadow after a snowfall that a poem hopes to cross