Authors: Juan Felipe Herrera
SkateFate (3 page)
IN BETWEEN
MY FOSTER CASA
& THE HARD WORLD
where the sun is still watery
whimpery soft & uncurled
where the alley night appears
as a yoke of tawny smoke
where each dreamy footstep glows
on the powderpowder sands
where half of me cartwheels
on the whirly foothills
where the other half breaks out
into elastic planets
where me & you & me & you
gossip a little about us two
where guns & knives & bombs & needles & bullies
are loomingboomingzooming
where hearts & minds & sometimes
kindness & time & time & time
seem so so far away
AT THE
GO-GO
GIFT SHOPPE
for the nurseâ
Pepto apples & Alka pears
for the firefighterâ
watermelon hats & diamond fountains
for the little girl on the dentist's leather & chrome chairâ
iced white chocolate mocha lattes &
a furious-fast candy-apple colored limo
Jason Blocker's hand came up to me with a silver lightning flower at the end of it. opened up and grew so fat it ripped everything out of the classroom. dunno. just heard myself stutterin'. somewhere. in middle of the. blast
SKATE IT
ON A KITE
AT NIGHT
send it to the stars
send it to the stars
when they tremble
eon dresses in light-year skies
grandmother Serafina's bedroom curtains rise
light up in amber sighs
ON A BROKEN-UP
STRAWBERRY-COLORED
SKATER DOLL
on the gnarled foot so it will turn into a swan
on the hurt breast so that every beat of the heart
writes a new word for love
on the shattered hip so that the consonants
become cha-cha-chas
on the screwed fingers so that new vowels
without the howls sprinkle out & grow
on the twisted head so that colors wind sail & pigtail
into laughing skies
on the ripped belly so that every building bends at the center
& bows to you
on the split knees so you can climb beyond Mercury
beyond Beyond
on the aching ankles so that every other sour shoe
can become skippery-sugary
on the reddish palm so that every no no no will now know
how to glow
ON THE TAG
ON PAPA Z'S DUFFEL BAG
AT THE LAST GREYHOUND STATION
war
is not
a video
game
war is not a video game papa z tells me
but sometimes i think it is all the same
SKATE IT
INSIDE A
RAINDROP
so when it falls
on the frozen windshield without notice
the glass will melt &
spell your name in one wavy Alaskan blast
when the driver ambles in & tosses the worker jacket
the tennis racket & all that world affairs racket
her eyes will read you through the shifting ice
balanced in the air all that is there
every moment born anew at last
IF YOU
FIND A POEM
BEFORE YOU GO TO BED
if you find a wet drippy poem
a poem filled with goldfish splashing Jupiter colors on a dish
or
a poem of tadpoles skipping over a tuna
making a whale of a wish
if you find a marvelous majestic mellifluous poem
that wants to sing
tired & tied to a 8 1/2 x 11-inch white picket fence paper
untie itâthat is all &
take a rubber-band taper from the morning paper
& tape it to the wind for goodnesssaker & let it become Spring
AT THE
GO-GO
GIFT SHOPPE
for the astronautâ
  Â
a mailbox of tangerine horizons & two trillion tortillas
     Â
flapping around Saturn
for mad foster moms driving you to schoolâ
  Â
Capezios to make it all easy-os &
  Â
a hooray Hula dancing class at twelve o'clock
for the faux-hawk skater cruisin' to the starsâ
coconut-flavored Post-its & a swimming pool filled with 7Up
now i can talk about it. after a year of screws in my legs and operations and tubes swishin' in and out of my stomach and kidneys i just wanted to roar out. touch things i had never touched. to see if it was true. was i still here was this life still here. on this side. whatever you call it dude. wanted to touch everything like van Gogh touched and smeared everything when he painted. so i wrote it and spoke it. maybe mama would hear me. cuz i could hear her. sayin' When your heart hurts sing. wherever you go. and i'll be there. maybe Des would surprise me parked around the corner. maybe papa would come back. sometimes in between the commas and periods and semicolons and gasps he said things to me. he said. Lucky. i. love. you.
ON
MY
SKATEBOARD
porpoisenosed
cheetahpawed
ancestralfinfinfin
bluequiverriversilvers
sawdust of awesome awe
here
i
gooooooooooooooooo!
gooooooo!
goooooooooo!
gooooooo!
gooooooo!
when you are dreaming you are dreaming
that is when you are awake when
French violet flower petals greet you like van Gogh &
all the streets lead to where you are
& there is no where to go you know you know
blue green hills & dawny-light & hope fill your eyes &
shake your heart
when the A train rides you to the City of Sparkles
& you call out
“here's where i stop so i can start!”
when each finger paints & each breath almost faints
all the moony messages & sassy singers
from all the fire escapes fly out it's your turn! they shout
it's your time! they dance
it's your rhyme! it's your chance
in a circle made of infinite circles in a breath
that breathes all our breath
when your face is smeared with summer & winter
autumn & spring sorrow & laughter what you lost
& what you are after what is soaring &
what sails under the sea
your season is here you see
it is near
can you hear its freedom melody ringing
it is you
so skate a poem
wherever you go & you & all will know
you
can be tragic you can
be casual & usual & unusual
1,2,3 put a poem on backward
& it starts to spell Me
are you listening-listening
write it weak every week
write it strong so every line can goooooooo looooooooooooooooooong &
belong
to your unexpected song
that's it that's itâ4, 5, 6, 7, 8, i said nine
print it on an Abercrombie sign
a BMX flying over Spider-Man bouncing sticky
across time right in the skate-skate it right there with a flair
right there
for all the looooosers & all the wiiiiiiiiinners
for those grounded for all those wounded
in wars at home in the school yard unknown
in wars far away in wars no one can say You're so gay
when all is quiet in the foster home zone
when every face & space in MySpace quivers &
logs out for a thrilli-second of rhyme
skate a poem that is your cue your sign
wherever you go
in a flurry in a hurry a textmessage w/o a worry
text it there text it in your own
magnificent mysterious texteriousway
text it to the girl with wrists cut
whose father storms into her room with the dust of Iraq
gone so soon?
text it to the boy with his mother so poor so lost under
the liquor light moon
text it to the girl-boy considering the angry gnarly rope cool
hanging from the roof so solemn so hairy so early in
that lonely shadow pool
text it to the teen soldier
ten years older
than yesterday's improvised explosive device duel
get serious with it seriously
get delirious with it deliriously
get omnivorous with it omnivorously
¡opalescentplasmathunderquake!
ithappenedtome
when i went flyin' & cryin' & dyin'
for goodness sake i ain't lying
be with it
be in it
be for it & after it beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
the poem thass all
be the song-song
you are singing
with ADD or
stutter-free with acne & ghee & horchata on your knee
with a bow-legged shape
with crisscross eyes that can truly see
with busted legs the color of eggs
with freckles & dimples &
heckles & Shrek-colored me's
going
going
gooooing
further than your dreams & screams
invisible & visible & visualized & televised
in your high-def lows &
your diggable-digital highs
in the eyelash of hip-hop creation or
in the woo-whoo of your own Claymation imagination
skate a poem there
do it pronto
for your girlfriend
for your self-fried
for your boywhocried
skate a poem crazy & lazy & wiggly & wobbly & brave
readyâi said go!
skate a poem wherever you goooooooooooooooooooooo
blog it
pog it
ride it
roo it
goo it
do it
crew it
brew it
shoo it
shoe it
moo it
blue it
Sue it
froo-fruit it
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, eighteen
OMGâ
skate it
on all the things
that come from no things in sight & things
critically wrong complicated fragile & magnificently strong
deodorant-stick fried burritos Bengal tiger carpet that's
where your pet went
dental braces & Disney gongs & throngs of
pregnancy tests & physics books & dental floss
Goth shoes plain white laces
quadratic formula prep-test races
isosceles triangles &
número dos
basketball championship shoes
what do you want Baghdad or divorce?
no one asked you to choose
diet obsessions behavioral mess any
more crunchy questions anyone
adoption option & foster papers all that mess you wished
was gone
PennySaver & craigslist gone wrong
you don't know what kind of boy you are or you aren't
skate it there girl or boy or both whatever
vitamin water or the fume in the perfume market crash &
all the rash
on your ex-friend takin' a lap & then a nap
in between all the gangsta' rap no fear
on CNN on all the baby names
on your stepmom's
Grey's Anatomy
at night
on the boy with the gun in the gloom-room w/o a sun
when
you are dreaming graduation is near
gooooo!
goooooooo
goooooooooo!
when you are dreaming
that is
when you are awake when
French violet flower petals
greet you like van Gogh &
all the streets
lead to
where you are . . .
