Jacob Saenz

they move in swift on the Swift Plants in six states & sift through the faces to separate the dark from the light like meat & seat them in the back of vans packed tight like the product they pack & who's to pick up the slack the black & white can't cut it so the beef stacks sell single to feed the pack       the flock who block passages & clog the cogs of the machine       the process not so swift to give & grant a wish of a place       a stake in the land handling the steaks for the rest to take in       to sate the mouths of the stock who have stock in the business of beef & beef with the brown who ground them

I remember nights of playing Lotería w/Mom & Big Manny as a way to learn the Spanish they spoke to each other but not to their kids who caught on to certain words like cállate,cerveza,chicharrón; little nuggets I ate up like the pinto beans we used instead of the blue chips Mom kept in her Bingo bag she carried every Friday night when her & Tia Shirley went to the Moose Lodge, her hair & coat reeking w/the smoke of all who lost. I remember El Borracho, the man always holding a bottle & about to fall over yet never does like Big Manny stumbling home late at night after a payday, breath & belly full of beer, who one time took a piss in our bedroom. I remember La Garza, not for the heron it is but cousin Tony & his kids, nights of sleepovers & pizza, PlayStation on a 40-inch TV, the night he & Lil Jesse sneaked bumps of coke in the bathroom & I rubbed numb my teenage teeth. I remember El Musico, not the chubby man clutching his guitarra but my brother Dave loading crates of records & a dual turntable case like a coffin into the back of a van, the same set I hit my back on at ten when I fell out of the top bunk bed. But I prefer to remember La Sirena back when her breasts were free of the seashells she now holds to cover them in water so blue cold, her scales so red, her name clung to the tongue like dulce de leche.

Today I became King of the Court w/out a diamond- encrusted crown thrust upon my sweaty head. Instead my markings of royalty were the t-shirt draping my body like a robe soaked in champagne & the pain in my right knee — a sign of a battle endured, my will tested & bested by none as the ball flew off my hands as swift as an arrow toward the heart of a target — my fingers ringless yet feeling like gold.

I play on Grove Street, live on Grove Avenue. Find me in the streets dressed in greens like groves. On the avenue, I’m a blue jeans type of guy. In the streets, never leave home w/out my 9mm. On the avenue, always carry my pen & wine key, in case some fool blows his cork. My UZI sings songs in the streets—rat-a-tat-tat. Birds chirp-chirp-chirp in trees on the avenue. Rolling down the street w/my lady—what she wanna do? “Let’s do a drive-by.” Rushing down the avenue w/my baby: “I’m hungry. Let’s do drive-thru.” I’ll punch punks purple & blue in the streets, bleed ’em w/bullets. On the avenue, I’ll leave punching to punks dressed in blues, reds, et cetera & mind my own.

My brother wore bags over his boots to keep the grease & grime from his time at the steel mill off the carpet & steps he mounted, heaving each foot like a monster born of the grave -yard shift — stiff & awkward, his arms smeared w/dark matter, the lather of machine & industry bathing his clothes & face in a glaze of sweat & smoke, oil & the dirt of what’s been done before — the work of uncles & cousins who wore the same jumpsuit, goggles & gloves to grab hold of cold finished bars using their backs & shoulders to move the weight around w/the help of machines, the knobs to control the two-ton bundles held by a buckle above the heads of hard-hatted men that could snap & let loose the mass of all that metal meant to weld into a foundation, a beginning to build upon when it was his time to work, to clock in clean & leave feeling filthy no matter the shift or stiffness in the bones creaking like the wooden stairs he climbed

As a boy I bicycled the block w/a brown mop top falling into a tail bleached blond, gold-like under golden light, like colors of Noble Knights ’banging on corners, unconcerned w/the colors I bore—a shorty too small to war with, too brown to be down for the block. White Knights became brown Kings still showing black & gold on corners now crowned, the block a branch branded w/la corona graffitied on garage doors by the pawns. As a teen, I could’ve beamed the crown, walked in w/out the beat down custom, warred w/my cousin who claimed Two-Six, the set on the next block decked in black & beige. But I preferred games to gangs, books to crooks wearing hats crooked to the left or right fighting for a plot, a block to spot & mark w/blood of boys who knew no better way to grow up than throw up the crown & be down for whatever.

I sit on the couch & witness my life projected on a screen — I am white w/a chiseled, dimpled chin & no lips. I’m a farmer who lives alone in a loft & not a lowly office worker who lives w/a roommate in an apartment where dust balls decorate the floors & walls & the ceiling rings w/children’s feet running back & forth like baby bulls. I am crazy enough to be a contestant on a show where I’m contractually obligated to propose to a woman who believes in a heteronormative, patriarchal idea of what a family should be. At the end of every episode, I offer roses to those I wish to make out w/more & take out on prepackaged romantic dates I could never afford on my bachelor budget. For example: a date in a castle, a glass slipper prop, a clock winding its way down to midnight. My date & I sip champagne, chat & eat, then we dance to a live orchestra led by a maestro who wishes he were dead. A giant screen appears & plays a clip of a live-action Cinderella movie w/Prince Charming played by an actor I’ve seen slaughter & behead a soldier like clipping the head off a rose. In real life, my dates consist of dinner at Burger King where we dine on chicken fries & don paper crowns for a royal feel. On another show date, I take two women into South Dakota where we fly over the heads of white slave owners carved into a sacred Native mountain. At the end of the date, I offer no roses to either woman & abandon them on a canopied bed in the middle of the Badlands & take off in a helicopter to provide the cameras an aerial view of wilderness & despair. At the end of the show, I find myself proposing to a fertility nurse in a barn made to look like a chapel & not the place where I raised my first horse, fucked my first goat. Here, I will milk the cows for our future offspring to drink straight from the teat like I did as a kid. The show ends & I rise from the couch & walk into the kitchen. On bended knee, I reach for a bottle of beer deep in the back of the fridge, pop the top like a question & take a swig, cold & crisp once it hits my full lips.