Serenading La Sirena

The barrio was a shipwreck
of drowning pachucos y pachucas

la sirena
was my girl

I worked long hours on the docks
welcoming salt

Saturday nights were made
of sand

my girl all painted up
fins and all

what a beautiful tail
swimming in and out of ships

the barrio bobbing up and down
our zoot suits soaked with surf

grab onto the barrio
if you can

she whispered
with her wet lips

Tacones

Chula Chulera
went to town to buy tacones

her falda le faltaba
and all the nasty viejos

fulfilled their sick fantasies
right there by the Alameda

Chula bought
the red tacones

which made her butt
stick out

and followed her
all the way up to the Alamo

she'd walked past the Majestic
adult movies blaring

the old unchanged river course
was still for intercourse

and Casa Rio
served delicious burnt tamales

Pulga

Lalo Malo went to the pulga
on Sunday

you crazy korianos
take the cake

he yelled
when he thought they were asking too much

for some cheap shit
he ended up buying

a sombrero
from an Indian vendor

steam-fitted
to his pointed-head

Lalo Malo
went home happy

as happy as
pinche Lalo can ever get

said his prima hermana
Chula Chulera

Lalo Malo

Pan o tortillas
yo no se

I was at the Alamodome
when the poet laureate read her poem

I was by the San Antonio River
calling it the Rio Bronco

I was having huevos rancheros
at Rancho Guero

I was at Mission San Jose
with Josefina Facilmente

I was on the Westside
with those who still abide

I was eating tacos de barbacoa
with the ghost of Caracol

pan o tortillas
don't make me laugh said Lalo Malo

before he threw the bread
at me

Reading The Past

amigos long gone
I still pick up your books of poetry

read them
as if you had just written them today

esta tarde
at some gritty cafe

or some other hangout
of ours

Joe's Bakery
or Luna's Lounge

on the Westside
Eastside

Southside
or whatever part of the barrio

was ours
for the taking

The Ghost

The ghost of what we think
hazy in a window

gullible non-believers say
it’s photo-shopped

my shiny organs
catch their breath

muddy shoulders
loosen

arms cry like babies
the gray windowsill so still

the ghost is jumping
and floating

it’s wearing nothing underneath
except for us

Deep Space

She wears her space suit to bed.

Her pearl-handled ray gun at her side.

The stars

shoot at night.

Sixty moons

like fish in a barrel.

She dreams

she’s a child again.

Her uncle

taught her everything she knows about space.

The sidewalks

were made of oxygen.

Her first tricycle

was really three.

Her mother

was made entirely of alien skin.

She ran away from home

when she was seven.

She’s lived in outer space since then.

She wishes she was ten.

The rocket ship is warming up

next to the fireplace.

She smiles in her sleep

and becomes weightless.

Her electrons don’t know who they are.

Neither wave nor particle.

A black hole runs down her mother's leg
her father said.

When she wakes up

her space suit is all sweaty.