Juan Felipe Herrera

Little Tokyo bar— ladies night, smoky gauze balcony, whispering. Tommy Becker, makes up words to “La Bamba”—request by Hard Jackson, mechanic on the left side of Paulie, oldies dancer, glowing with everything inside of her, shattered remembrances, healed in lavender nail polish, the jagged fingernail tapping. So play it hard above this floor, this velvet desert. I want the Titian ochre yeast of winter, keyboard man, fix your eyes on my eyes and tell me, handsome, how long will I live? How many double-fisted desires, crushed letters, will I lift in this terrain? And this rumbling sleeve, this ironed flint of inquisitions and imaginary executors, where shall I strike, what proud stones? Will this fauna open for me, ever, this fuzz, anointed beak inside the bartender’s mirrors, etched doves, a cautious spiral Harley tank, hissing, this Indian bead choker on Rita’s neck? How long shall we remain as wavy reflections, imitators of our own jacket’s frown? Who shall awaken first? Margo Fitzer, the waitress? I will say, Queen Margo, sing to me stoic princess of slavering hearts, three faint lines creased on your satin belly, toss our planet onto your umber lacquer tray, too empty now; make the earth spin its dog rhapsody, erotic through this silvery off-ramp and flake, unfurl. We tumble across this raceway in honey-glazed traces, our arms ahead, the hands flying to Ricky’s Ice Cream Parlour, outside. I want to own one someday, maybe on Thirty-Second Street. You will see me in my gelled waved hair, my busy wrists—so fast, a clown’s resolute gloves, dipping faster than finger painting—except I’d be stirring milk and the chocolate foam of love, churning, burning this sweet spirit, more uncertain, than the celestial sheaths above the prairie frost. See the boy coming, they chide, leaning, how he crosses his legs, his eyes dreaming, sideburns just shaved clean. He weighs the sour slate on his father’s breath; perfume, fortune, cards left on the bleeding table. Milo Wilkens, drummer at the curve, strokes his nipples with his arms as he hits the high hat. Somewhere in the back rooms, I know, a shrine, orange sponge cushions, two toilets and a wire wound wicker box, to leave flowers, occasional offerings by the Johnson County dudes, detasselers in jersey ties. Talk no more, enjoy. Darling singer, let your starry blouse sway me, steal this fresh peach half from its amber juice; I want the moon in this nectar, too. The flashing cymbals, feverish. Who can strike a votive candle, love, or sleep in this electronic night? Just listen to the two-part harmony, laughter, peeling beyond the cemetery, beyond the Iowa river—where the spike hat rooster bristles his tiny ears, bows his head, and sips from the dark canister under the carved pearl-stone. And then, returns. Let us drink, salute the bright spokes of meal, the dying wands of river blossoms, grandmother’s sacred hair; listen, her soprano owl, her bluish melody, so thin. Another glass please, we shall dance once again, our eyebrows smearing against each other’s cheekbones, loud with a Midwest sweat, a cantata from the crosshatch amp, click it. Click it, for wild kind rain, forgiving seasons, for the blushed bread of our shoulders and thighs, this night, everyone is here. Even Jeff Yoder came all the way from Illinois, to fill a bucket with passion, ruffled, thick. O sax player with a jail needle tattoo, leap onto this wet pavement, call my lonesome tempest heart, its buried mother’s kiss, bless us in staccato, with quivers of oak branch greenness, and sparrow longings riff over this brutal sky, give us your bell filled, conjure your tropic, our lover’s breath. Blues bar dancers, jangling gold popcorn, chord makers, opal-eyed Suzie in a flannel shirt; we beckon the spark, the flaring this lost body to live.

In the cannery the porpoise soul & the shadow fins of spirit boats lie awake the hundred hooks & flying reels one harpoon & the silver fleshing in the nets the mayor is waiting/counting scales dreaming new quotas & tuna coasts (under the table blood & payrolls swim to the shores on a crucifix of oil) in the cannery the porpoise soul steals a dagger for the engines throat tuna fins etch an X on the green stone of the ships floor there are documents with worker sweat files & rolled sleeve salt a spear of sails & anchor years (lost) inside the shoulders & against the ropes (somehow) a policy gunned the waves back before the porpoise sea was born

I walk back—nowhere, under moonlight. The dogs look as if they are angels, the ones I never imagined, with drooling silvery rays and torn behinds, yes, glowing in a strange and excited phosphor, dancing out of rhythm, racing up trees, chasing snails. This is like a children's book. O, yes, the children with rectangle heads and sack stomachs. With the eyes of Da Vinci, sad and impish, meticulous as Ibn Khaldun and taciturn as Nietzsche, phlegmatic and bitter, when they speak they leave opalescent liquids on the grasses, stuttered under a half-erased mural of Arafat, or is it Sharon, wait, the children never speak, they nod their heads, they carry huge bundles strapped across their foreheads. They weep under newspapers and roll up their skirts and wash them in the gutters, ponds, if they find them, then they run to the sea. This is where we meet, on occasion, we make up stories, we remember fruits and produce as if blessed by the plutonium blasts. "Remember the pears, they were so green, and the avocados, like guitars, honey-golden, and the asparagus, like a lion's rainy mane, and . . ." Our mouths water. Their mouths water, I am used to these stories. I am used to the land barren, bitten and aflame with lies. I am used to our faces in this new wild dispassionate light. I learned this from my musician friends, from years waging futile wars with poetry until I could not think of anything else.

I forget the date: en route to Austin, Texas: soda on tray. Women at the computer, mexicanas learning to read and write at the same time, a workshop, we exchange stories the crossings: Hidalgo Texas Sonora Zacatecas Chihuahua—I think of my father, for a moment— I see him again, robust, alone, walks to the park, the heat dissolves the avenues. The Nomenclature cuts across the Arctic: snare the oil, gas lines, install the stations, derricks and surveillance towers, surveys, documents, classified pouches. Carry this microscopic fissure into South Asia. Diplomats—they say, so many teams of men, they orbit in silence and loud vests and helmets, they stoop with a sweetness and sift the granules, then, they rise, oblong, hunched, on fire, ready to dig into the ice, a new boundary for the national vortex, this undeclared war; the almost-uttered war, this war begins, listen. Listen closely— I hear a rap song in the distance: "I am standin' in Lebanon watchin' everbody get it on, why am I the only one singin' this desolation song...?"

I am merely posing for a photograph. Remember, when the Nomenclature stops you, tell them that—“Sirs, he was posing for my camera, that is all.” . . . yes, that may just work. My eyes: clear, hazel like my father’s, gaze across the sea, my hands at my side, my legs spread apart in the wet sands, my pants crumpled, torn, withered, my shirt in rags, see-through in places, no buttons, what a luxury, buttons, I laugh a little, my tongue slips and licks itself, almost, I laugh, licks itself from side to side, the corners of my mouth, if only I could talk like I used to, giggle under moonlight, to myself, my arms destitute, shrunken, I hadn’t noticed, after so many years sifting through rubble stars, rubble toys, rubble crosses, after so many decades beseeching rubble breasts—pretend I came to swim, I am here by accident, like you. My face to one side. Listen to gray-white bells of rubble, the list goes on—the bones, hearts, puffed intestines, stoned genitalia, teeth, again I forget how to piece all this together, scraps, so many scraps, lines and holes. The white gray rubble light blinds me, wait, I just thought—what if this is not visible, what if all this is not visible. Listen here, closely: I am speaking of the amber thighs still spilling nectar on the dust fleece across Gaza, the mountains, the spliced wombs across Israel, Syria. The amber serums cut across all boundaries, they smell incense, bread, honey—the color of my mother’s hands, her flesh, the shrapnel is the same color the propellers churn.

for Tomás Mendoza-Harrell & Lauro Flores I cut / / / / / I multiply everyday images. I apply an aluminum point. To the landscape. To the sentence. To the photo. To the figure. To the word. And suddenly, with a slight tremor of eyes, vertebrae and fingers, I destroy everything that exists. Through the years, I’ve rebuilt the cells, uncovered the signs of the cold, immaculate, academic vestibules and of the dead lips and histories in the metropolitan streets. My surgery is criminal. No one has been able to identify the skeletons, the remains, the thousand scattered nerves of personages I’ve gathered in order to bring this figure back to life. The scars are numberless and invisible. Who would suspect a grafik artist? Who would suspect this gray table as a chamber of murders? Instruments: —The pencil sleeping with its yellow blanket and rubber crown. —A magazine of memories, smiling women, men’s suits and watches like drops, like science. —Tubes of smothered ink sounding like small seas pounding a universe of plastic. —A photo of a Chamula woman looking through these windows toward the Mission. —Watercolors: French Ultramarine, Emerald Green and Windsor Violet. —Matches thin friends identical soldiers with their red helmets thinking. —Dictionaries in Portuguese, Spanish and German, white pages beasts nobody hears moaning. —The priest lantern praying with its head pointing toward the floor in front of a fierce wall. —Solemn archives organized by syllables, breaths, laughs and love with X. —A book about an artist:The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera, printed in New York where they listen to the wind falling from the tallest building. And the X-acto knives. Triangular. The beautiful blades / / / / / Every night cars cruise the streets of 24th and Mission. A woman from San José drives a blue Chevy with smoked windows. Estela. She has reddish hair. Tight brows and dark eyes desiring everything but this street that ends in eight blocks: Potrero Avenue. She’ll have to turn. But she won’t. She won’t go back to the home of twenty years and her father who pretends to play Santa by Agustín Lara on his old guitar and the mother organizing a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ meeting. Estela will leave the car parked between Harrison Street and Alabama in San Francisco. She’ll walk aimlessly in the warmth of the produce stores, into St. Peter’s church, by the Galería de la Raza, China Books, the bakery at La Victoria. She’ll walk in the night with her eyes burning, seeing him laughing, the young man in his black box apartment, laughing, laughing, laughing like a little man. The little man laughs. It’s an apartment of marriage and fists. The wife-beater laughs in his easy chair. Next to his bed he sees the anxious note. He focuses on the signature with the E broken in three places. He looks at the stained and unmade sheets, the dull curtains, the crushed cigarettes and the ashes. The black-and-white television announces a sale of living room furniture. With his can of beer he observes. Smokes. Thinks. Within a week or two they’ll take his cousin to San Quentin prison, again. The last time he saw him he was a gardener at a college. He imagines Estela coming home. He imagines and drinks calmly. Makes the bed. Turns off the television and turns on the fm. He amuses himself in that space or cube floating above the city. Estela walks north on the Avenue. P / O / T / R / E / R / O Grafiks require precise knives. On that day When you came to bathe me I sweated that stink That only the anesthetized Can sweat. You sponged my skin Cleaned my hair and Seeming to ignore My stunned and shriveled genitals You nonetheless bathed them . . . — michael ramsey-pérez Randi finds himself in a hospital in Los Angeles or maybe further south, in San Diego. I think his parents are from Arizona. He’s very ill. He’s in a room with a red sign hanging from the doorknob. I / S / O / L / A / T / I / O / N His liver is bloated, skin yellowed, hair long and greasy. Weakness consumes him night after night. He can’t speak, tires easily. But he can hear. He hears the white heels of the doctors and nurses running to the rooms of the dying. He hears footsteps fluttering like doves over the floor or like the leaves of fever falling from the roof of hell. It’s eleven o’clock at night. He hears the abandoned man in room 200 fall out of bed attempting to drink a glass of water. He hears the IV tubes bursting, the sweet plasma spinning between the walls, the bag slipping to the floor and splattering through the night’s open screens. The man screams. Vomits blood and ulcers. Gets tangled up in sheets and transparent plastic veins. After half an hour doves fly in. The leaves fall. Fast. After a few days a black man enters room 199. An orderly. He cleans his body with a warm sponge. His hands run slowly down the yellowed back, the belly and fragile shoulders of Randi. Dark birds fly over a forgotten landscape. Randi looks at his mother rubbing his chest with alcohol to quiet the cough before he sleeps. He turns his face. Imagines his one-room house, a trailer his father made out of an old car. They’re on a little ranch at the outskirts of an unknown town. The mountains reflect the afternoon’s coppery heat. From afar you can see birds crossing above the saguaros and the sky. The last time I saw Randi was at San Francisco City College. He had just turned in all his papers so he could drop out at midterm. He didn’t want to go on with it. It was a farce. Like when he was invited to read poetry near the Galería de La Raza in the Mission District. He never showed up. Took 18th instead of 24th Street. Some Latinos beat him up. They noticed a homosexual air about him. Lies do not exist, only the grafik. This figure has no scars / / / / / When I had you they didn’t give me anything. I grabbed onto the washbasin until I thought I’d die they did that then. They strapped . . . — alma luz villanueva Eva (circa 1946), the doctor says they have to operate. Your pelvis is too narrow. The child can’t be born. It will come out in pieces. Eva. They’ll have to operate. He says he’ll give you morphine for the stitches afterwards. Even if you scream, Eva, it’ll be alright. Even if the nurses ignore you, laugh at you as they see your bluish mouth open, your sleepwalker’s eyes, your hands scratching against the metal bed or the air or memories. For one long second they’ll study your womb in bandages stains clouds raindrops suns and rouge shadows and rage over the coffin hidden by 10 centimeters of vertical stitching. Eva. You’ll hemorrhage 29 days later while washing clothes over a tin basin. Eva. The doctor is smiling. Have faith in him. He says everything is fine. I’ve signed the papers. Everything is arranged, girl. —The pencil wakes —The sheet tightens, the rubber vibrates —The magazine fades —The watch is speechless Someone has erased all the E’s from all the pages; small empty rectangles remain. The ink runs searching for asylum. —Emerald green is the color of jagged grass diluted in great bottles of tears, spit and alcohol. It’s rain for a hell of cells. They burn and burn and burn. S / I / E / B / R / E / N / N / E / N Diego, you touch up a colossal worker with too-sad eyes, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt. His eyes are swollen. The worker wants to see, but his eyes don’t count anymore, just his hands. They fly. They untangle above new machines toward the future. Touching the atmosphere. The fingers touch the 17th of February, 1981. The National Guard enters the province of Las Cabañas in El Salvador. They trap the area, cutting off all the roads out for the campesinos. Bombs fall. The mountains explode rocks, roots and water. An iron shell splinter rips into the throats of grandfathers and little girls. The initials U S A sweat. They sweat through the paint of the Guardia helicopters swooping down over the huts and fields of corn. Seven thousand begin to run toward the Río Lempa. 15km and then the wide river. 15km and then maybe refuge in the jungles of Honduras. Only 15kms 9kms 7kms 6kms    a pregnant young woman disappears 5kms    the Guardia captured her along with the others 4kms    they rip off her clothes 4kms    soldiers in masculine green stained uniforms circle her 4kms    they tie her arms and legs 3kms    the bayonet penetrates 2kms    it etches an x of red tears over the furious womb 6kms    the proud soldier throws down his weapon 12kms   sinks his right hand 9kms    rips out the fetus with the fingernails of his hot fingers 13kms   lifts it up like a torch 1km      opening his mouth the soldier screams 15kms   One less communist in El Salvador! They reach the river. They jump in the water. Suddenly, from the Honduran side other helicopters and machine guns appear. The wind surrenders. The afternoon weakens. The giant worker’s machinery shrieks on the tiny corner of the page: Plate number 113. It’s your self-portrait that you painted on the wall of the San Francisco Art Institute. Few blades have been needed / / / / / This time. I used a few blades to fill the canvas with its dramatis personae, landscapes and scenes that have been held back and kept secret; a figure dealt out in different boxes toward different destinies. No one has been able to figure out what happened on this table. But it’s time to turn off the black lamp. If the ask me, I’ll do the only thing I can. 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and I heard an unending scream piercing nature. —from the diary of Edvard Munch , 1892 At the greyhound bus stations, at airports, at silent wharfs the bodies exit the crafts. Women, men, children; cast out from the new paradise. They are not there in the homeland, in Argentina, not there in Santiago, Chile; never there in Montevideo, Uruguay, and they are not here in America They are in exile: a slow scream across a yellow bridge the jaws stretched, widening, the eyes multiplied into blood orbits, torn, whirling, spilling between two slopes; the sea, black, swallowing all prayers, shadeless. Only tall faceless figures of pain flutter across the bridge. They pace in charred suits, the hands lift, point and ache and fly at sunset as cold dark birds. They will hover over the dead ones: a family shattered by military, buried by hunger, asleep now with the eyes burning echoes calling Joaquín, María, Andrea, Joaquín, Joaquín, Andrea en exilio From here we see them, we the ones from here, not there or across, only here, without the bridge, without the arms as blue liquid quenching the secret thirst of unmarked graves, without our flesh journeying refuge or pilgrimage; not passengers on imaginary ships sailing between reef and sky, we that die here awake on Harrison Street, on Excelsior Avenue clutching the tenderness of chrome radios, whispering to the saints in supermarkets, motionless in the chasm of playgrounds, searching at 9 a.m. from our third floor cells, bowing mute, shoving the curtains with trembling speckled brown hands. Alone, we look out to the wires, the summer, to the newspaper wound in knots as matches for tenements. We that look out from our miniature vestibules, peering out from our old clothes, the father's well-sewn plaid shirt pocket, an old woman's oversized wool sweater peering out from the makeshift kitchen. We peer out to the streets, to the parades, we the ones from here not there or across, from here, only here. Where is our exile? Who has taken it?

I enter the void, it has the shape of a viola: Israel, Jenin, West Bank, Nablus—a rubble boy shifts his scapula as if it was his continent, underground Gazaground, I want to say—his only bone, the rubble boy is a girl, I think, her hair tossed, knotted and torn under the green shank of fibers, tubes and shells. She digs for her rubble father, I say rubble because it is indistinguishable from ice, fire, dust, clay, flesh, tears, concrete, bread, lungs, pubis, god, say rubble, say water— the rubble girl digs for her rubble mother, occupation—disinheritance—once again, I had written this somewhere, in a workshop, I think, yes, it was an afternoon of dark poets with leaves, coffee and music in the liquor light room. A rock, perhaps it's a rock, juts out, two rocks embrace each other, the shapes come to me easily, an old poetic reflex—memoria, a nation underground, that is it, the nation under-ground, that is why the rocks cover it. I forget to mention the blasts, so many things flying, light, existence, the house in tins, a mother in rags. It is too cold to expose her tiny legs, the fish-shaped back—you must take these notes for me. Before you go. See this undulate extend beyond the pools of blood. I ride the night, past the Yukon, past South Laredo, past Odessa, past the Ukraine, old Jaffa, Haifa and Istanbul, across clouds, hesitant and porous, listen— they are porous so we can glide into them, this underbelly, this underground: wound-mothers and sobbing fathers, they leave, in their ribboned flesh, shores lisp against nothingness, open—toward you, they dissolve again into my shoes— Hear the dust gong: gendarme passports, cloned maize men in C-130's, with tears bubbling on their hands, pebbles en route—we are all en route to the rubblelands. I want to chant a bliss mantra— Prajnaparamita can you hear me? I want to call for the dragon-slayer omchild. I am on my knees again. On the West Bank count the waves of skull debris—a Hebrew letter for "love" refuses me, an Arabic letter for "boundary" acknowledges me. Sit on an embankment, a dust fleece, there is a tidal wave ahead of me. It will never reach me. I live underground, under the Dead Sea, under the benevolent rocks and forearms and mortar shells and slender naked red green torsos, black, so much black. En route: this could be a train, listen: it derails into a cloud.

A dónde vamos  where are we going Speak in English or the guard is going to come A dónde vamos  where are we going Speak in English or the guard is gonna get us hermana Pero qué hicimos but what did we do Speak in English come on Nomás sé unas pocas palabras I just know a few words You better figure it out hermana the guard is right there See the bus driver Tantos días y ni sabíamos para donde íbamos So many days and we didn't even know where we were headed I know where we're going Where we always go To some detention center to some fingerprinting hall or cube Some warehouse warehouse after warehouse Pero ya nos investigaron ya cruzamos ya nos cacharon Los federales del bordo qué más quieren But they already questioned us we already crossed over they already grabbed us the Border Patrol what more do they want We are on the bus now that is all A dónde vamos te digo salí desde Honduras No hemos comido nada y dónde vamos a dormir Where are we going I am telling you I came from Honduras We haven’t eaten anything and where are we going to sleep I don’t want to talk about it just tell them That you came from nowhere I came from nowhere And we crossed the border from nowhere And now you and me and everybody else here is On a bus to nowehere you got it? Pero por eso nos venimos para salir de la nada But that’s why we came to leave all that nothing behind When the bus stops there will be more nothing We’re here hermana Y esas gentes quiénes son no quieren que siga el camión No quieren que sigamos Están bloqueando el bus A dónde vamos ahora Those people there who are they they don't want the bus to keep going they don't want us to keep going now they are blocking the bus so where do we go What? He tardado 47 días para llegar acá no fue fácil hermana 45 días desde Honduras con los coyotes los que se — bueno ya sabes lo que les hicieron a las chicas allí mero en frente de nosotros pero qué íbamos a hacer y los trenes los trenes cómo diré hermana cientos de nosotros como gallinas como topos en jaulas y verduras pudriendóse en los trenes de miles me oyes de miles y se resbalaban de los techos y los desiertos de Arizona de Tajas sed y hambre sed y hambre dos cosas sed y hambre día tras día hermana y ahora aquí en este camión y quién sabe a dónde vamos hermana fijate vengo desde Brownsville dónde nos amarraron y ahora en California pero todavía no entramos y todavía el bordo está por delante It took me 47 days to get here it wasn't easy hermana 45 days from Honduras with the coyotes the ones that — well you know what they did to las chicas right there in front of us so what were we supposed to do and the trains the trains how can I tell you hermana hundreds of us like chickens like gophers in cages and vegetables rotting on trains of thousands you hear me of thousands and they slid from the rooftops and the deserts of Arizona and Texas thirst and hunger thirst and hunger two things thirst and hunger day after day hermana and now here on this bus of who-knows-where we are going hermana listen I come from Brownsville where they tied us up and now in California but still we're not inside and still the border lies ahead of us I told you to speak in English even un poquito the guard is going to think we are doing something people are screaming outside they want to push the bus back Pero para dónde le damos hermana por eso me vine le quebraron las piernas a mi padre las pandillas mataron a mi hijo solo quiero que estemos juntos tantos años hermana separados But where do we go hermana that's why I came here they broke my father's legs gangs killed my son I just want us to be together so many years hermana pulled apart What? Mi madre me dijo que lo más importante es la libertad la bondad y la buenas acciones con el prójimo My mother told me that the most important thing is freedom kindness and doing good for others What are you talking about? I told you to be quiet La libertad viene desde muy adentro allí reside todo el dolor de todo el mundo el momento en que purguemos ese dolor de nuestras entrañas seremos libres y en ese momento tenemos que llenarnos de todo el dolor de todos los seres para liberarlos a ellos mismos Freedom comes from deep inside all the pain of the world lives there the second we cleanse that pain from our guts we shall be free and in that moment we have to fill ourselves up with all the pain of all beings to free them — all of them The guard is coming well now what          maybe they'll take us to another detention center we'll eat we’ll have a floor a blanket toilets water and each other for a while No somos nada y venimos de la nada pero esa nada lo es todo si la nutres de amor por eso venceremos We are nothing and we come from nothing but that nothing is everything, if you feed it with love that is why we will triumph We are everything hermana Because we come from everything

Ezekiel saw the wheel, way up in the middle of the air. TRADITIONAL GOSPEL SONG Blood on the night soil man en route to the country prison Blood on the sullen chair, the one that holds you with its pleasure Blood inside the quartz, the beauty watch, the eye of the guard Blood on the slope of names & the tattoos hidden Blood on the Virgin, behind the veils, Behind—in the moon angel's gold oracle hair What blood is this, is it the blood of the worker rat? Is it the blood of the clone governor, the city maid? Why does it course in s's & z's? Blood on the couch, made for viewing automobiles & face cream Blood on the pin, this one going through you without any pain Blood on the screen, the green torso queen of slavering hearts Blood on the grandmother's wish, her tawdry stick of Texas Blood on the daughter's breast who sews roses Blood on the father, does anyone remember him, bluish? Blood from a kitchen fresco, in thick amber strokes Blood from the baby's right ear, from his ochre nose What blood is this? Blood on the fender, in the sender's shoe, in his liquor sack Blood on the street, call it Milagro Boulevard, Mercy Lanes #9 Blood on the alien, in the alligator jacket teen boy Juan There is blood, there, he says Blood here too, down here, she says Only blood, the Blood Mother sings Blood driving miniature American queens stamped into rage Blood driving rappers in Mercedes blackened & whitened in news Blood driving the snare-eyed professor searching for her panties Blood driving the championship husband bent in Extreme Unction Blood of the orphan weasel in heat, the Calvinist farmer in wheat Blood of the lettuce rebellion on the rise, the cannery worker's prize Blood of the painted donkey forced into prostitute zebra, Blood of the Tijuana tourist finally awake & forced into pimp sleep again It is blood time, Sir Terminator says, It is blood time, Sir Simpson winks, It is blood time, Sir McVeigh weighs. Her nuclear blood watch soaked, will it dry? His whitish blood ring smoked, will it foam? My groin blood leather roped, will it marry? My wife's peasant blood spoked, will it ride again? Blood in the tin, in the coffee bean, in the maquila oración Blood in the language, in the wise text of the market sausage Blood in the border web, the penal colony shed, in the bilingual yard Crow blood blues perched on nothingness again fly over my field, yellow-green & opal Dog blood crawl & swish through my sheets Who will eat this speckled corn? Who shall be born on this Wednesday war bed? Blood in the acid theater, again, in the box office smash hit Blood in the Corvette tank, in the crack talk crank below Blood boat Navy blood glove Army ventricle Marines in the cookie sex jar, camouflaged rape whalers Roam & rumble, investigate my Mexican hoodlum blood Tiny blood behind my Cuban ear, wine colored & hushed Tiny blood in the death row tool, in the middle-aged corset Tiny blood sampler, tiny blood, you hush up again, so tiny Blood in the Groove Shopping Center, In blue Appalachia river, in Detroit harness spleen Blood in the Groove Virus machine, In low ocean tide, in Iowa soy bean Blood in the Groove Lynch mob orchestra, South of Herzegovina, south, I said Blood marching for the Immigration Patrol, prized & arrogant Blood spawning in the dawn break of African Blood Tribes, grimacing & multiple—multiple, I said Blood on the Macho Hat, the one used for proper genuflections Blood on the faithful knee, the one readied for erotic negation Blood on the willing nerve terminal, the one open for suicide Blood at the age of seventeen Blood at the age of one, dumped in a Greyhound bus Blood mute & autistic & cauterized & smuggled Mayan & burned in border smelter tar Could this be yours? Could this item belong to you? Could this ticket be what you ordered, could it? Blood on the wheel, blood on the reel Bronze dead gold & diamond deep. Blood be fast.