Poetry

Recall Benjamin’s angelus novus,
broad wings blown back by winds
from paradise, the sediment of time. […]

Wishin’ for thighs    thick
skin    callin’ me second

thought & third rail thin
built to sink & some […]

it will always be your fault:
his nose running
after that first dip
in the Atlantic,
his bruised elbow […]

Okay so you show up
& sign in on a sheet of paper
then slump into the common area
where you are greeted by the eaters & the non-eaters […]

Never pick a fight with anyone
who still buys blank media in bulk.

Remember the bliss of auto-reverse, […]

Summer afternoons, we make a game
of collecting empty shells

spit from a shotgun chamber: silver […]

My mom tried to reclaim me in small ways like teaching me cumbia. When I was young she used to lean in after spinning me to say: el borracho will lean in too close, breathing his hot alcohol on your neck, that’s when you know it’s time to leave. […]

I remember how the school laughed, marveling
how a pretty white boy could take a beating
when a pair of sistas jumped him on 10th Ave […]

I learn that to want
there to be monsters

is perhaps monstrous itself […]