Urayoán Noel

I swallow a pill but there is no cure A city map won’t get me where I want to go Scaling the scaffold, mindless of the mall, unaware of driveways where housewives dodge the wrecking ball, I crawl outside these vacant blues and into the contours of your eyes

(after Juan Luis Guerra) from Africa to a Caribbean hill de África a las lomas del Caribe to the smiling ruin of our cities a la feliz ruina de ciudades anoint the neural vessels we refill al matorral neural en donde vive until your acid muse drowns our pities tu agria musa que ahoga soledades return us to our tribe that grew dark beans devuélvenos al semillero isleño cut through the grease of our late-night omelets metaboliza la grasa nocturna and warm this empty diner by the club trae tu calor a nuestro desvelo where luckless lovers stare at tiny screens haz que el amante no muera de sueño and poets brew old socks into psalmlets tu borra es poema que embadurna while dreaming it rains coffee from above. y sombría tu alegría de cielo.

Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation —Vachel Lindsay 1 Who knows why my baby left me? Who knows where she could have gone? Is she hiding in the center Of some little-known downtown? Has she been seduced by villains? Have they got her gagged and bound? Vanished from the lost and found With no trace and no reminder . . . ? Yeah, she’s lost, but I will find her Down in the faraway suburbs. 2                        Puerto Rico In Guaynabo and Tao Baja The theorists and professors Are playing rhetorical poker With their identity cards, They are shooting wads of wisdom To impress the senile deans; Meanwhile, the good citizens Are all working for the government, Cheating on taxes and spouses Down in the faraway suburbs. 3                        New York The Greyhound wheezes its way From New York up to Poughkeepsie; I pass the time singing “Gypsy” By Fleetwood Mac, a cappella; And the watercolor landscape Falls apart on the gray planes; The diners and the dead-ends, The deserted factories, And the doors creak noisily Down in the faraway suburbs. 4 The are prehistoric skeletons At the beach on Staten Island And the jellyfish are dancing Slow, hydrochloric waltzes: There are Doric-style chalets With South American servants Where the little brothers play; Sniffing underarms and solvents While the dog shows off its teeth Down in the faraway suburbs. 5 Here the end of the expressway Gives way to medieval forests And correctional facilities And McDonald’s without tourists; I’m overwhelmed by the view Of the mansions on the plains, The housing projects, the flames Creeping through the dead of winter As the landfill burns tonight Down in the faraway suburbs. 6                        California In the righteous neighborhoods, Atherton, West Palo Alto, They’re paving over the asphalt With the gravel of privilege— All ones hears are the arpeggios Of the pre-recorded pianos, And the trembling of the hands That are serving themselves gin And the shot glass shattering Down in the faraway suburbs. 7 Far from all the shantytowns, In Millbrae and Redwood City, One more neighborhood committee Is creating civic centers And more monumental malls Catering to healthy pleasures: Peewee softball in the summers, Window-shopping, Cineplex, And those fruity Tex-Mex shakes Down in the faraway suburbs. 8 A distant, majestic Sun Licks the cliffs and the embankments, I search for your embalmed eye On the coast of the Pacific. Marin County  in particular Has its share of urban ghosts, Like those midget saxophonists Who long for their days of glory And are now telling their story Down in the faraway suburbs. 9 I’ve searched for you in each corner of This innocuous continent— Could it be you’re facing me? Could it be that you’re my neighbor? That the downtown and the eye balm And the grime that coats your hands Are all arcane holograms? That your epileptic smile Died that antiseptic night Down in the faraway suburbs.

The housewives laugh at what they can’t avoid: In single file, buckling one by one Under the weight of the late summer sun, They drop their bags, they twitch, and are destroyed. He hears a voice (there is a bust of Freud Carved on the mountainside). He tucks the gun Under his rented beard and starts to run. (“The housewives laugh at what they can’t avoid.”) Like She-bears fettered to a rusted moon They crawl across the parking lot and shed Tearblood. The office park is closing soon. Night falls. The neighborhood buries its dead And changes channels—Zap! Ah, the purity Of death and taxes and Social Security.