109 Social justice poems

Cuk Son is a story. Tucson is a linguistic alternative. The story is in the many languages still heard in this place of Black Mountains. They are in the echo of lost, forgotten languages heard here even before the people arrived. The true story of this place recalls people walking deserts all their lives and continuing today, if only in their dreams. The true story is ringing in their footsteps in a place so quiet, they can hear their blood moving through their veins. Their stories give shape to the mountains encircling this place. Wa:k is the story of water memories of this desert. Citizens gravitate to Sabino Canyon. The humming, buzzing, clicking of water life, the miracle of desert streams on smooth boulders. Rocks, sediment older than life itself serve as reminders. It should be unnecessary for sticky notes to remind us what a desert place is. A place dependent on rains of summer, light dusting of snow, the rarity of dry beds as rebel rivers. It is real desert people who lift their faces upward with the first signs of moisture. They know how to inhale properly. Recognizing the aroma of creosote in the distance. Relieved the cycle is beginning again. These people are to be commended. It is others who lament the heat of a June day, simultaneously finding pride on surviving the heat—a dry heat. These individuals should simply be tolerated. Opposed to those who move from one air-conditioned environment to another, never acknowledging the heat of summer. Being grateful for November, when temperatures drop below eighty, complaining of the lack of seasons in the desert, heading for mountains to see colors— these people—well, what can we say. We must feel for the dogs of Tucson. Who bark as if they belong to somebody and who, before the rain, wish they were a color other than black.

They worked They were always on time They were never late They never spoke back when they were insulted They worked They never took days off that were not on the calendar They never went on strike without permission They worked ten days a week and were only paid for five They worked They worked They worked and they died They died broke They died owing They died never knowing what the front entrance of the first national city bank looks like Juan Miguel Milagros Olga Manuel All died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow passing their bill collectors on to the next of kin All died waiting for the garden of eden to open up again under a new management All died dreaming about america waking them up in the middle of the night screaming: Mira Mira your name is on the winning lottery ticket for one hundred thousand dollars All died hating the grocery stores that sold them make-believe steak and bullet-proof rice and beans All died waiting dreaming and hating Dead Puerto Ricans Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans Who never took a coffee break from the ten commandments to KILL KILL KILL the landlords of their cracked skulls and communicate with their latino souls Juan Miguel Milagros Olga Manuel From the nervous breakdown streets where the mice live like millionaires and the people do not live at all are dead and were never alive Juan died waiting for his number to hit Miguel died waiting for the welfare check to come and go and come again Milagros died waiting for her ten children to grow up and work so she could quit working Olga died waiting for a five dollar raise Manuel died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead so he could get a promotion Is a long ride from Spanish Harlem to long island cemetery where they were buried First the train and then the bus and the cold cuts for lunch and the flowers that will be stolen when visiting hours are over Is very expensive Is very expensive But they understand Their parents understood Is a long non-profit ride from Spanish Harlem to long island cemetery Juan Miguel Milagros Olga Manuel All died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow Dreaming Dreaming about queens Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood Puerto Ricanless scene Thirty-thousand-dollar home The first spics on the block Proud to belong to a community of gringos who want them lynched Proud to be a long distance away from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa These dreams These empty dreams from the make-believe bedrooms their parents left them are the after-effects of television programs about the ideal white american family with black maids and latino janitors who are well train— to make everyone and their bill collectors laugh at them and the people they represent Juan died dreaming about a new car Miguel died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs Milagros died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico Olga died dreaming about real jewelry Manuel died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes They all died like a hero sandwich dies in the garment district at twelve o’clock in the afternoon social security number to ashes union dues to dust They knew they were born to weep and keep the morticians employed as long as they pledge allegiance to the flag that wants them destroyed They saw their names listed in the telephone directory of destruction They were train to turn the other cheek by newspapers that mispelled mispronounced and misunderstood their names and celebrated when death came and stole their final laundry ticket They were born dead and they died dead Is time to visit sister lopez again the number one healer and fortune card dealer in Spanish Harlem She can communicate with your late relatives for a reasonable fee Good news is guaranteed Rise Table Rise Table death is not dumb and disable— Those who love you want to know the correct number to play Let them know this right away Rise Table Rise Table death is not dumb and disable Now that your problems are over and the world is off your shoulders help those who you left behind find financial peace of mind Rise Table Rise Table death is not dumb and disable If the right number we hit all our problems will split and we will visit your grave on every legal holiday Those who love you want to know the correct number to play let them know this right away We know your spirit is able Death is not dumb and disable RISE TABLE RISE TABLE Juan Miguel Milagros Olga Manuel All died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow Hating fighting and stealing broken windows from each other Practicing a religion without a roof The old testament The new testament according to me gospel of the internal revenue the judge and jury and executioner protector and eternal bill collector Secondhand shit for sale learn how to say Como Esta Usted and you will make a fortune They are dead They are dead and will not return from the dead until they stop neglecting the art of their dialogue— for broken english lessons to impress the mister goldsteins— who keep them employed as lavaplatos porters messenger boys factory workers maids stock clerks shipping clerks assistant mailroom assistant, assistant assistant to the assistant’s assistant assistant lavaplatos and automatic artificial smiling doormen for the lowest wages of the ages and rages when you demand a raise because is against the company policy to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS Juan died hating Miguel because Miguel’s used car was in better running condition than his used car Miguel died hating Milagros because Milagros had a color television set and he could not afford one yet Milagros died hating Olga because Olga made five dollars more on the same job Olga died hating Manuel because Manuel had hit the numbers more times than she had hit the numbers Manuel died hating all of them Juan Miguel Milagros and Olga because they all spoke broken english more fluently than he did And now they are together in the main lobby of the void Addicted to silence Off limits to the wind Confine to worm supremacy in long island cemetery This is the groovy hereafter the protestant collection box was talking so loud and proud about Here lies Juan Here lies Miguel Here lies Milagros Here lies Olga Here lies Manuel who died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow Always broke Always owing Never knowing that they are beautiful people Never knowing the geography of their complexion PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE If only they had turned off the television and tune into their own imaginations If only they had used the white supremacy bibles for toilet paper purpose and make their latino souls the only religion of their race If only they had return to the definition of the sun after the first mental snowstorm on the summer of their senses If only they had kept their eyes open at the funeral of their fellow employees who came to this country to make a fortune and were buried without underwears Juan Miguel Milagros Olga Manuel will right now be doing their own thing where beautiful people sing and dance and work together where the wind is a stranger to miserable weather conditions where you do not need a dictionary to communicate with your people Aqui Se Habla Espanol all the time Aqui you salute your flag first Aqui there are no dial soap commercials Aqui everybody smells good Aqui tv dinners do not have a future Aqui the men and women admire desire and never get tired of each other Aqui Que Pasa Power is what’s happening Aqui to be called negrito means to be called LOVE

In ancient Greece, for all her heroes, for Medea    ...    water meant death. — Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones i poured a bowl of cereal, threw the empty box in the trash can. granddaddy pulled the box from the trash, poured the crumbs into a bowl, then doused the sand in milk. he looked down at the bowl, murmuring about how he had survived the depression. told a story about asking for hot water at colored diners, how he would pour ketchup in cups to make soup. this was how i first learned i am wasteful. • i would stand in the bathroom with my mother. would ask her why the water in the bowl was red. she would tell me she had eaten beets. i suppose i was too young to learn the truth, milkflowers spill petals red. • in my catholic school of fish, we took a beautifully wrapped box, passed it around the class, unwrapping it piece by piece. afterwards it was cleverly explained that the box is a girl’s virginity the gift we give our husbands. & who wants a toy that has already been opened? half the joy is in untying the string. this is how i was taught that at my very core, i am ungrateful. • i met someone recently, in an irish bar, who told me it’s about knowing what i need. he said later what you need is a wife

these are my people & I find them on the street & shadow through any wild all wild my people my people a dance of strangers in my blood the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind bindi a new moon on her forehead I claim her my kin & sew the star of her to my breast the toddler dangling from stroller hair a fountain of dandelion seed at the bakery I claim them too the sikh uncle at the airport who apologizes for the pat down the muslim man who abandons his car at the traffic light drops to his knees at the call of the azan & the muslim man who sips good whiskey at the start of maghrib the lone khala at the park pairing her kurta with crocs my people my people I can’t be lost when I see you my compass is brown & gold & blood my compass a muslim teenager snapback & high-tops gracing the subway platform mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people’s image if they come for you they come for me too in the dead of winter a flock of aunties step out on the sand their dupattas turn to ocean a colony of uncles grind their palms & a thousand jasmines bell the air my people I follow you like constellations we hear the glass smashing the street & the nights opening their dark our names this country’s wood for the fire my people my people the long years we’ve survived the long years yet to come I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow

Not coop so much as aviary. The way everyone thinks the youngest two are twins despite their differences. This memory of a blue dress the tall man called a cool drink of water. A carpet burning the skin right off my back. What I needed to say versus what I was able —the way you can't see an image in sunlight unless it's matte. Could you drink pee if there were nothing else?

Mouths full of laughter, the turistas come to the tall hotel with suitcases full of dollars. Every morning my brother makes the cool beach new for them. With a wooden board he smooths away all footprints. I peek through the cactus fence and watch the women rub oil sweeter than honey into their arms and legs while their children jump waves or sip drinks from long straws, coconut white, mango yellow. Once my little sister ran barefoot across the hot sand for a taste. My mother roared like the ocean, “No. No. It’s their beach. It’s their beach.”

He startled to see a statue of blind justice really did loom over the courtroom. But remained determined to scorn symbolism. She needed a quarter to call her lover— the docket was full, she’d be late for lunch— and he gave her one. It was not a taunt, acquiescence, wager, or plea. It was a quarter. The fact that they had done this— even this!—together and cordially, late nights at the dining room table with a bottle of cabernet, sharp pencils, A Love Supreme , and an “E-Z Workbook” from the well-reviewed—the fact that they’d read reviews!— Don’t Pay an Attorney! series, as if they were learning Portuguese or origami, was not “as if” or “like” anything, but just that, a fact, and not to be pressed for further significance. This was part of the agreement. They filled out the forms. Asked lawyer friends for language. Made stacks of books and towels. Cooked dinner together, said “excuse me” passing in the hallway, and even remembered each other’s mother’s birthdays. As if. Not as if. Waiting for their case to be called, they got hungry. The bailiff pointed toward the snack bar in the basement, which was packed with a class trip from the school for the blind. In illo tempore such a gift would have caused them to turn to each other in love and wonder. Now, no. They didn’t even look to see. She asked for fish sticks, and he wondered if fish sticks were fish or like fish. The children chewed their chicken fingers with calm deliberation, staring out at what they saw, then conveyed their limp paper plates with startling grace to the hinged swinging mouths of the trash cans which swallowed everything offered saying THANK YOU THANK YOU.

for César Chávez Field The wind sprays pale dirt into my mouth The small, almost invisible scars On my hands. The pores in my throat and elbows Have taken in a seed of dirt of their own. After a day in the grape fields near Rolinda A fine silt, washed by sweat, Has settled into the lines On my wrists and palms. Already I am becoming the valley, A soil that sprouts nothing. For any of us. Wind A dry wind over the valley Peeled mountains, grain by grain, To small slopes, loose dirt Where red ants tunnel. The wind strokes The skulls and spines of cattle To white dust, to nothing, Covers the spiked tracks of beetles, Of tumbleweed, of sparrows That pecked the ground for insects. Evenings, when I am in the yard weeding, The wind picks up the breath of my armpits Like dust, swirls it Miles away And drops it On the ear of a rabid dog, And I take on another life. Wind When you got up this morning the sun Blazed an hour in the sky, A lizard hid Under the curled leaves of manzanita And winked its dark lids. Later, the sky grayed, And the cold wind you breathed Was moving under your skin and already far From the small hives of your lungs. Stars At dusk the first stars appear. Not one eager finger points toward them. A little later the stars spread with the night And an orange moon rises To lead them, like a shepherd, toward dawn. Sun In June the sun is a bonnet of light Coming up, Little by little, From behind a skyline of pine. The pastures sway with fiddle-neck, Tassels of foxtail. At Piedra A couple fish on the river’s edge, Their shadows deep against the water. Above, in the stubbled slopes, Cows climb down As the heat rises In a mist of blond locusts, Returning to the valley. Rain When autumn rains flatten sycamore leaves, The tiny volcanos of dirt Ants raised around their holes, I should be out of work. My silverware and stack of plates will go unused Like the old, my two good slacks Will smother under a growth of lint And smell of the old dust That rises When the closet door opens or closes. The skin of my belly will tighten like a belt And there will be no reason for pockets. Harvest East of the sun’s slant, in the vineyard that never failed, A wind crossed my face, moving the dust And a portion of my voice a step closer to a new year. The sky went black in the ninth hour of rolling trays, And in the distance ropes of rain dropped to pull me From the thick harvest that was not mine. Fog If you go to your window You will notice a fog drifting in. The sun is no stronger than a flashlight. Not all the sweaters Hung in closets all summer Could soak up this mist. The fog: A mouth nibbling everything to its origin, Pomegranate trees, stolen bicycles, The string of lights at a used-car lot, A Pontiac with scorched valves. In Fresno the fog is passing The young thief prying a window screen, Graying my hair that falls And goes unfound, my fingerprints Slowly growing a fur of dust— One hundred years from now There should be no reason to believe I lived. Daybreak In this moment when the light starts up In the east and rubs The horizon until it catches fire, We enter the fields to hoe, Row after row, among the small flags of onion, Waving off the dragonflies That ladder the air. And tears the onions raise Do not begin in your eyes but in ours, In the salt blown From one blister into another; They begin in knowing You will never waken to bear The hour timed to a heart beat, The wind pressing us closer to the ground. When the season ends, And the onions are unplugged from their sleep, We won’t forget what you failed to see, And nothing will heal Under the rain’s broken fingers.

even when issues arise and obedience can not be secured by the bludgeon, the bludgeon remains; when we mention the people, we do not mean the confessional body of the people, we mean particularly itinerant bodies in mechanic flux, preaching freedom beyond flesh pamphlets of authority, concealed in blind devotion. when we mean the people, we mean a people knowing their own strength cast as day laborers, or knowing to a greater part of a lesser known part playing paid intercourse in all connections for the people by the people. when we mean, we mean broke or abrasive worn, once open scream representatives, now incarcerated in a rationalistic shadow land, given a history that merges extruder merchandising with wholesale lots of intermittent dung, or objects for understudy beatings.

I. The Santa Anas, childlike and profound, blanket me; I see the dust stirring the valley and clouding downtown San Bernardino; I feel the sting of your loss. The black oak leaves, brittle, tumbling, crack under my feet. Is your hand touching the dryness of my lips? You sing: "Don't sit, mountain-still, a coyote skull whistling." I tug at the skin on my wrist, trying to peel off the seam, my stubbornness. On Sunday, I wear my only decent dress, gypsy-green. I hear heels scurry around me, Our priest is a hinged tongue, his verse tucking us in. Why can't I focus on anyone's face? II. The winds fly from a canyon's belly into a peasant blouse. A stampede of leaves and twigs rushes by a patch of grass, scraping across a sidewalk and dragging their nails, fierce and defiant as a local poet's words. From the sides of mountains, waterfalls of dust form, and during my pilgrimage, the fate of lip-stained Styrofoam cups will not unnerve me. Not worried about compasses, I'll go by fences guarding abandoned lots, through desperate patches of grass, yellowing, past one-legged billboards of paper and glue. Resting under the shade of bus stops, I'll recite old tales to ward off the haunted and the debris of family floods piling up. When the voices on an updraft emphatically circle like red-tailed hawks, I'll recall the tail of a comet urging you to wrap yourself in its flames and dissolve. Entranced by a burning equal to yours, I'll walk eighty miles, traveling the routes of my childhood candy wrappers. III. In the moisture of a dirt road I traveled, you are the rain that visited the night before. Does your tongue sense the heat of bodies flying in the Santa Anas? Again, I am lost tracing your face, a dry playa, the eyes of clay, a brown maze of upward glances. Are you a creek bridge, a fallen cedar, lodged between sunbaked boulders inviting me to cross? You are the one taking away my fear of being wheeled down a hallway without doors. IV. With twigs in my hair, I was found somewhere near the national forest. Bystanders pulled back their sniffing dogs while I stood, barefoot and tired. When I predicted earthquakes in China, Peru and Cucamonga, California, I baffled my psychiatric ward. After a nurse removed my handout of The Seasons: Winter, wildlife appeared on the hospital grounds. A mule deer's antlers surfaced in the parking lot, weaving among the staff's cars. A coyote leaped into the patients' garden and howled under a security light as if to say: "I am here. Where are you?" A roadrunner scooted across a lot, losing one of its long tail feathers. All this had the staff checking again if their office windows were latched. In my notebook, I drew a coy face with blurry dots for eyes that peer out of a hollow trunk, struck by lightning, charred by fire, with smoke still rising under your vaulted sky. V. Outside my window, the sky is suddenly draped by a hum, a hummingbird's hunger. Her wings wrinkle the sky. Unlike a chickadee too busy and full of seed chatter, the hummingbird puffs up the air, feeding like a storm, a redness, a sideway rocket past the world's ear. That spark reminds me of you. Thin-rooted, lingering too long, absorbed in window reveries, I'll be released. Here, the soil is moist, sponge-like, storing. Worms surface, digesting their way up. I, too, am ready for the driving winds of another season.