The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (50 page)

the rise and fall of her breath like pain and pleasure.

the conversation is the same every time.

do you ever think of God? she asks.

sometimes, he says. this is why he loves her:

she reads him stories from the Bible

found in the dresser and he is fascinated.

he likes the one about the people in the desert

following a cloud in the day and a pillar of fire in the night,

and he wishes that he had something to follow,

“something to lead me out of this crapshoot life,” he thinks.

sometimes she tells him about a man murdered

forgiving everyone, even his own killers.

this is when she cries, and he feels he too should cry,

that he must cry for the man murdered who forgives,

only he doesn't know how, yet.

he only knows that he likes to hear

her stories, that there is something good in her voice,

he only knows that he can smell life in her breath

behind the stale stench of the room's desire.

and where, raza, are our heroes?

                 the heroes of aztlán?

what became of that great nation we were going to build?

where did all the warriors go with their sharpened knives

             and loaded rifles?

everyday i walk through the cracking streets smelling despair like a rose.

i ride on buses freshly laced with the stench of some borracho's vomit

and there are bones and more bones stacking up around me,

murdered by pipes and cops, knives and guns, or just the evil glare

of some rich gava. and not the viejitos sipping tea, or the lovers loving

behind the bushes in the park can make me smile or laugh or see

some glimmer of hope in this crazy cosa called life

             cause i can't get out, the streets keep returning to me the same,

             always the same

                          like a bad dream, and i have come to the conclusion

that this is how it was meant to be: death in my pocket and insanity

the limp that keeps dragging me down. a tattoo teardrop falling from

            my eyes.

                         i can't sing anymore.

                                      no whistle pushes forth

                                                  from between my lips.

i'm getting ready to bust out loco, and no one hears when i'm yelling

“i gotta go, gotta get outta here!”

so i           smile now         swith a cuete tucked in the back of my baggies

and a .40 in my right hand, imagining myself some kind of chulo

cholo, or some other form of vato loco or just another ciclón

waiting to put some little chump stepping up punk down

and then when i'm doing the tecato shuffle, or the borracho bump,

dying coughing in that cockroach motel they found louie in

i'll cry and i'll cry and i'll              cry later            like the tattoo says,

and no one will be the wiser, not my mom working the graveyard

or my girl who looks like her mother, that little girl with my abuelita's

name, who will probably die younger than me

and it all comes down to the fact

i've lived the life of a coward,

a slave, i never had the guts

to explode, really explode, like cuauhtemoc or zapata,

suicide style so my gente can live like gente with honor.

i was born in 1978 from asphalt

and the beat-up bumpers of chevys

              on fourth and vine

on sanjo's south side. they keep

               telling me it was raining

and the lighting was licking the streets

up and down as if the world was a cheap motel

room with cockroaches propped up on the pillows.

they keep saying it was a sign,

the rain and its lightning,

of my darkness.

               they say

i was meant for evil.

               they say

what else can come

from a syphilitic john

and his saturday night

             whore.

but it ain't so.

             i keep waiting

for the clouds to bust out

in lights. i keep waiting to hear

a trumpet so fine

that the man miles

will bow his knee.

i keep waiting to hear

the Man say,

              “good goin' tommy

           you all right.”

they say i was born

from a witch's womb.

but i'm tellin' ya

             i was born in 1978

bowing broken on a chevy's bumper

             my knees digging into asphalt and glass

and a puddle of gunk

             on fourth and vine

                       on sanjo's south side,

              my chest heaving a lifetime into the air,

                       the moonless night.

i was born in 1978

             sobbing Christ from my lips.

kb: tonight the sky in fresno was different shades

of blue. dusk and clouds splitting into two huge arms

like a man reaching to God through sadness, through the stars,

past the moon, as if lifting his arms in praise and thanksgiving.

i wonder if you saw the same old man floating up there.

i am remembering san francisco. you, me, and your sister sitting

in a cafe. the coffee was bad. do you remember? you pretended

to be a mechanic that day. your catholic cheek is what i see still

and the fear that rested on your forehead like a butterfly waving

its wings ready for flight. san francisco. that city always reminded me

of plastic: shiny and freshly pulled from the mold and painted

with sea salt and sheen. i had no memory in that city. in that city

i had amnesia.

here, the memories rise up like anger, like teeth sharp

and sinister. they rise up like the lover you can't bear to leave:

i found my brother, one day, behind a door, arms spread wide

like Christ on the cross, laid out on the floor over a pile of colorful

clothes ready for wash, the sad slashes at his wrists weeping

into the stench of stale cigarette smoke and poverty that held captive

that room, his eyes deep dark wells wet and begging for the logic of death.

goya would have painted this had he had to live with us

in that crumbling house in fresno, in the flats of melody park.

i don't know why, but i love this image, i love this city. if hope

cannot be found here, then where? hope. frisco was never

like that for me. what memories do your hands hold of that city?

what is it that you find beautiful there? perhaps you could paint

for me an image in glass, colored in truth and hope.

have you heard from roque lately? has he taught you any new words?

you know sometimes i think he is so full of crap that i could

close my ears to him forever. but it is his passion, his love

that has infected me. this must have come from God.

he painted justice on the lips of humanity, and struggle

on the forehead. it was love he sketched on the cheeks

and hope he brushed into the eyes. he didn't know it

but it was a picture he painted of our Christ, alive

and extending a hand of mercy, ready to give justice

to the poor. but isn't it crazy, sister, that we keep thinking

of Christ as a thief? what is it that he would take from us?

the love we have for our own legs? sadness? suicide? self-hate?

when i was a kid, i betrayed, like judas, my own brother. i love him

even now his face smooth and jaw square. his eyes were two

huge apples alive in the sun. he smelled of ditch water

and weeds. he was beautiful, that boy. he wanted us

to be brothers forever, to be beat into song under a starry

starry night. but i was in love with power more than i loved

him and i left him on the ground weeping

more at the sight of my back than the memory

of my fists. and when i saw him on the floor, his wrists split

open at the heart, i was angry. i wanted to beat him. i hated his

powerlessness and i wept not for him or for my mother

who would have to bear all of this, but for myself, for in his blood

i saw my life running away in lies and I couldn't stand him.

i am ashamed. what a fool i was. what a scared little boy

i was. he was Christ that day and i held a hammer

and a handful of nails. this is what i hope Christ takes from me.

why is it that we keep believing the propaganda

that God is in love with injustice, or that he is dead,

or, at the very least disinterested in the pain and fear

and love we feel? Christ is alive, and my cheeks

want to touch his, my pores are waiting for him,

and my nose can't wait to feel the heat and wet

of his breath. does this sound strange to you?

i am wondering what you look like in the valley.

what does your name sound like there? does it still smell

of grass green and wet under a sky of morning?

i pray that in your heart will be found hope as huge

as the sky that waits for the coming of clouds. i pray

that you are smiling. i pray joy will be found singing

from your ocean-like eyes. thinking of you, sister: andrés.

   how will i remember you, grandma?

               will it be your name, luciana, that i recall

                           on nights when the forgetful remember

                everything?

                           luciana: beautiful

                 like the wind winding whispers

                          through the arms of the trees.

                 luciana: my sister carries your name

                       and she wears your earrings

                              and her birth will forever carry

                                  your heart

                                           beating boldly for the truth.

      how will i remember you, abuelita?

                   will it be in the kitchen

                        tortillas on the comal

                             eggs frying in the pan

                                  and a song of praise

                                           pouring forth from your lips?

or perhaps

              it will be your face, a bruised petal of forgiveness

                    as you told me your story

                        on a saturday afternoon

                                      in dixon,

                        how grandpa came for you

                  smelling of sheep and whores, how your

                         grandmother

              was old and tired and begging for the cool sheet of a warm bed

                    to lie down and forget her life, how she sold you or traded you

                             dragging you away from the dolls

                                        to stand before the priest

                                              and become a woman at

                                        twelve.

                    or maybe

                             i will remember you

                hobbling into the grocery store,

                       the nylons gathering at the back of your knees

                                like wrinkled skin,

                                          like survival.

will i remember your hands, your beautiful hands,

           two measures of tender masa

                  you use to lay on the faces of all your children?

will i remember your prayers prayed,

                  the powerful breath of your hope

                           forging a way for us all in this madness?

i tell you, grandma, this is how i see you:

         you are dancing, your straight leg is bending and your hair