here's one for anisa

Aztec Angel

            I

I am an Aztec angel
       criminal
              of a scholarly society
    I do favors
           for whimsical magicians
     where I pawn
           my heart for truth
      and find my way
            through obscure streets
      of soft-spoken
                           hara-kiris


               II

I am an Aztec angel
       forlorn passenger
             on a train
       of chicken farmers
              and happy children


                III

I am the Aztec angel
      fraternal partner
                of an orthodox society
       where pachuco children
             hurl stones
        through poetry rooms
        and end up in cop cars
        their bones itching
                and their hearts
        busted from malnutrition

                IV

I am the Aztec angel
      who frequents bars
      spends evenings
      with literary circles
       and socializes with spiks
       niggers and wops
             and collapses on his way
                to funerals

                V

Drunk
    lonely
          bespectacled
    the sky
            opens my veins
               like rain
             clouds go berserk
                 around me
     my Mexican Ancestors
                chew my fingernails

I am an Aztec angel
      offspring of a woman
            who was beautiful

by Luis Omar Salinas