LatinosUSA

Small House Dog
(a golden shovel using lyrics from Temple of the Dog’s “Call Me a Dog”)

Blue fire, reckless hands, moth-eaten moon, you
threatened to kill my whole family. Tell

me who else received your fists. I am me
now, not your dolly. I’m the ocean, I’m

holding secret fire. You are low
on my list of cares, and you are the cause.

I’ve eaten the clouds. I’ve swam time, and I’ve
carried a gong in my chest. I have slept

well without you. I’ve walked many miles on
forest trails, remade by trees breathing, the

soft give of moss. You’ve held me on the floor,
against walls, by the neck, said no one could and

would love me but you. But I did walk out,
didn’t I, down the road to payphone, in

sharp cold. I called home, and that was the
end of it. They always loved me, the woods.

They embraced me in their bark arms and with
urgency whispered to me, I am the

land, the deer, the squirrels, the birds, badgers.
I took the trees at their word. I am and

I am, I kept the company of wolves.
You couldn’t handle my feral howl. You

were afraid. You held my hair when I threw
up. You built a castle around me,

moats and fanged gates to keep me in. I’m out,
and your anger is forever. I cause

clouds to rally around your crown, and I
bring the drenching rain. The dragons went

too, into the past’s sky. You are digging
for the day we met. I went digging for

me without you, when I knew I was gold.
Little beast, small house dog, show your teeth, and

know it means nothing. I loved you, but I
don’t remember. I remember how it came,

your anger, swift and without cause. Home
is what I’d long for then, stairs and rooms with

the brass clock chiming each hour. I’d been in a
safe place, I knew quiet rhythms, handful

of hours stretching out like the sky, and of
love. I am dense heat, I am a live coal.

I am the turning of twigs in the fire when
the moon is mute, and the stars are starched, it’s

me, I am my own love. I am by my
own side. I can still remember the time

you paid to be flown in a small plane, to
see the Gorge below, to turn sideways, throw

gravity to the wolves. No fear, only the
cloud of weed in my head. I hold this next

to your fists, your strangling hands. I’m a stone,
I am an emerald waiting, and I’ll

be polished to shine by the right hand. Call
me whatever you want, irrelevant you.

I am bounteous, I am beautiful.
If a man can’t see galaxies in me, if

one chamber of his heart hates me, then I
have a car and I’ll drive. You shouldn’t call.

I’ve seen you with your mask off, and at
First, it’s laughable. My fear is not all.

~~

Two Worlds
(a golden shovel of lyrics from Metallica’s “Jump in the Fire”)

With my carton of cigarettes, I jump
into the back seat, across laps, and by
the moon’s thick fingernail we’re moving, your

brother at the wheel. We’ve robbed the store, will
go back with our stolen booze, we think, or
not. Your brother wants to kill you, let it be

known by brandishing a large knife. We’re taken
into a stop sign, crash. We leap out, by
then the acid has scrambled us, a force

of chaos. He’s like a mad dog, so I’ll
walk from the car slowly. I’ll only get
his homicidal attention if I run. You

and I and two others have no either/
or, no plan, just snow, our bumbling way
through backyards. Although we keep trying,

we can’t focus on survival, up to
our calves in snow. We return to the road, keep
walking, discuss how we may be freezing, the

acid blinding us to death. It’s hellfire
in our veins, we’re outrageously lit,
dazzled by snowflakes, on slick road and I

in those cowgirl boots. This is what I am.
Confusion, piqued senses, and death stalking
me with a big knife. We know, as do you,

he’s crazy enough to do it, and as
the snow thickens on his intended prey,
a cop arrives, and we, preferring living,

ask him to take us home. Your brother, your
twin in insanity, will, in this life
and not another, take us to the river, as

summer hums thickly in the air. It’s me,
fucking in the coarse sand over rocks. And I
am a risk-taker, fan of Slayer, am

a flame held in the hand. Also, you
are burning. I am an extension of you.
I am as crazy, in other ways, see

the world as a candy bar to take. There
are no rules I won’t break. I live in what is,
of the pie, I wrest the bigger part.

*

When I look back, I’m not sure what to make of
myself. She is an oddity, that me.
What do I do with this girl I was? In

what way can I honor her? Everyone
has a past, and mine is strange, so
hard to swallow. So out of my own reach.

*

Once I was running from you, I crouched down
and hid under your father’s truck. I’d grab
at life, and death would grab back. Into my

hiding place let’s go, on rocks, my hand
pinched by their roughness. Take my hand, let’s walk
to the loading dock where you strangled me, with

your small hands, with your large anger. And me,
seeing the absurdity of my death through
this means. What the newspaper will say. The

aftermath of me. In a blood-drenched land,
another number. The people will come
together to light candles. I’ll go home.

*

When the towers fell, where were you, where?
I was in college, far and safe from you.
I’d begun picking up my past, belong-

ing nowhere, and to no one. I was so
eager. The two parts of me were to come
together, make a rational one. On

my face I drew the dark lips. I would jump
back into myself. Two worlds I’d live in,
the world of reason and faith and books, the

mad world of the all-consuming fire.

~~

If You’ve Cracked the Night With Your Fist
(a golden shovel using lyrics from Ministry’s “Stigmata”)

I need the liquor to be stronger.
I need Earth to tilt. It’s life rather than

death, lust and hunger rather than reason.
I need the music to be stronger.

Two leads, one bass, one drummer, rather than
keyboards and piano solos. It’s lies

we told ourselves: metal must have the
growl. It’s only a party, it’s only

me there with the boys. Throw back some more truth.
Just another drink, and you’ll say what I

want. It just gets more tangled, to know.
I want to rummage in your head. It is

where I’ll find photos of me, I hope. The
day dies, your hazel eyes turn solid black. Look

at me, I spent time on make-up, I’m in
your pupil– I want to make a nest in your

pupil. Everyone’s talking about eyes;
they are not windows, tell less than you think. The

look you give me, that hazardous look,
is not enough to act on. So, I’m in

your gaze; it doesn’t mean I’m in your
brain at any other time. Damn the eyes!

They stir the pheromones of my body, they just
do. Tonight, we’re in an old trailer, like

*

hell it is, busted floor and walls, and a
heat like a just driven, ticking car.

We jump on the furniture like kids, crash
to the floor. We are kids, dumb and just

sprouted from our exuviae, like
cicadas, ready to throw our trill a

mile. No one, I mean no one, should have a knife.
We can’t control our hormonal spurts. My

favorite song comes on, my favorite–
I frenzy. I know the words. I am weapon,

I am bullet, I am gun, what I am is
a match for violence. Strike me; can you see the

flare? Please don’t give me that oceanic look.
We’re shallow ponds, all of us, we play in

a movie we are making up. Black opals, your
eyes. A struck bell, a rock’s splash, your eyes.

We made the days thunder and ice. If you’ve
cracked the night with your fist, if you’ve run

from a store with stolen beer, if you’re out
of life and need to break something of

value, if your chisel-and-bone eye lies,
I’ve built on a foundation of sand. I’m

certain of this: we were devils chewing
our way out of hell, mouths of magma, on

land we arrived, ordinary kids. Glass-
bottled beer a luxury. I got some, and

a tab of acid, for my birthday. Eating,
I could feel the food tunneling through my

body, hair with tracers, glowing fingers.
You were there, you remember me before I’m

broken, before this all leaves its mark, not
on flesh but in the cells of my brain. The

night we climbed the grooves in the tire, one
by one up to the tractor’s cab (who’s

a child now) to play tractor, then we’d run
when a car passed by with its lights, duck out

of sight, behind the giant wheels. I’m of
the opinion we were children who were fed lies.

~~

Once a Whore, Always a Whore
(a golden shovel using the lyrics of Slayer’s “Raining Blood”)

I won’t pretend I’m a butterfly, trapped,
beating my wings against the net. I’m in

your display, though, pierced through, purgatory
of a creature whose insides leaked out. A

cicada shell, empty and lifeless.
But I am not reborn, I’m the object

left behind. Vampire, I seek those alive.
I’m in it day by day, not awaiting

any redemption or a reprisal.
A friend pulls out my hair. I kick her. Death

giggles at this violence, but it will
not come to me. I’m in detention. Be

aware that I am writing poems, their
sharp barbs piercing the page. Acquittance

occurs just by sitting in the lunchroom. The
day is chopped up, and in the sky

the sun droops in shame. Another week is
poured down the drain with stale beer, with turning

aside. I catch the sun in my hair, red,
setting. To my own vomit I return,

to lost panties, to pissing publicly, to
rituals in which I find my power.

Fucking doll-like draws power. Drinking draws
power, puking does not. I am near

total dissolution, dispersed in Fall
air. The molecules of me turn into

someone’s headache, sour stomach. But me,
I’m ready to go again. I am the

shit. I am a turnstile, I am the sky’s
weeping of color, ending with crimson.

Can empty of beer, eyes empty of tears.
I have abolished love, will abolish

my own soul, toss it into a ditch, the
finale of my breaking of the rules.

I am the half-crushed can in the grass, made
of tin. I’m a solar flare. I’m made of

diamond. I am the moon. I am a stone.
I will get in anyone’s car, pierced

as I am with a tack. I flutter from
myself, standing in the snowfall below.

Where do they go, those acquiesced souls?

*

It is dark now, and cold. I’m just one of
the guys. The guys drop acid, and on my

tongue is a half-square. I’m treacherous.
I see a guy with snakes in his chest. Past

midnight and circling like a dog. Betrayed
myself so many times. It’s a loop, by

God! I see thunder in your hair, many
clouds thundering at once. So I know now.

You’re a bridge. Girls may be ornaments,
but your dark hair with new rain is dripping.

*

I forget the visions. I walk above
the crowd like an angel. I’m awaiting

an open door. It’s time to escape the
cicatrix, its bumpy outlines. The hour

is now. I don’t know what I’m afraid of.
There is no apology, reprisal.

No part of this story is your
story. I’ve seen the circles of time.

*

The past is meandering, it slips
its banks, like a child who has run away.

She hasn’t brought clean socks, and it’s raining.
She has bitten her lip, and there is blood.

There is a dark cave I am returning from.
In it, I’ve hidden my many shames. A

doll I was, hair torn, face lacerated.
I stood cocky, some dumb punk, under sky

red as any of my wounds and bleeding.
I am nightmare, and I embrace it. It’s

nearing the end now, the long horror.
Now, in my mindscape, I am creating

jewelweed, its humble little cups. In my
house, the lights are on. I have a structure,

am no longer a pool of blood. It’s now.
My monster, I did love only you, and I

shall die with that. The skies shall open, shall
rain. Clocks are reset. I know the mind’s reign

is over, its punishing, and in
its place, a presidency of body, blood.

~~

Our Last Summer
(a golden shovel using lyrics from Pearl Jam’s “Black”)

Our last summer was cicadas, heat, and
evening bonfires. I remember it now.

My shorts, black lace panels showing skin, my
t-shirt, a rotting corpse of a bitter

dead soldier on a cross. Where were my hands?
In the grass, on the back deck wood, cradle

he leaned into, my arms. Our love, broken.
Empty cans, smashed bottles, shards of glass.

It felt permanent, this triangle of
love, this trapezoid: he loved me, what

I loved was your presence, and your love was
rotten, starting to stink, everything

would soon cascade like an IT crash. All
the days a hops-tinged haze. The night, the

truth-teller, silent. There are no pictures.
All I have is my faulty brain; what I have

is not enough. Soon I would die, this me, all

lipstick and anger. Who would I have been?
If I hadn’t been befouled, then washed?

*

There are only so many days in
a year, so many seconds, an hour. Black

hair cropped short, overweight, not tattooed.
That’s me now, trying to own everything

I am. The girl– I want her back, then all
will snap into place like a puzzle. The

days are lean and stripped of beauty, and love
is brittle bones and dust. I am as gone

as I was after the dark night, the bad
suppurating wound. I turned then, I turned.

*

I won’t describe the rape, only that my
love–you– did it, curdled the milk of my world.

A boy would ask me, Who are you trying to
be now? Me in a flowered skirt, no black

shirts, no make-up, hair gone brown, tattooed
only with private tears. It baffled all.

The girl was dead. The girl was buried. I
lived on like a ghoul. I need to find, see,

the girl. She is the root of me, is all
that takes up water, that anchors, and that

means I need her back. She is the first I.
How can I now say what I am, I am?

*

That summer, I worshiped the beer poured all
down your bare chest, each prisming droplet. I’ll

always be drinking Budweiser, I’ll be
in a wrecked car, in the back seat. And I

will kick the seat you sit in, will not know
what the hell you’re on about, and someday,

I’ll wake up and remember. But you’ll
never speak of it, never again. Have

I got the facts right? Can I trust in a
memory? I’ll never be as beautiful

as the girl in this tireless, dusty life.
But I manage, a maimed, a partial I.

*

Our last summer lives on, even though I know
it’s foolish. You think I am crazy. You’ll

wonder if you broke me. Who would I be?
Not what I am now, educated, a

writer. I live under the north star.
Solitude made me. I’m nothing in

your mind. I am, and will be, somebody.
Digging is hard work. Somebody else’s

shovel, and a red, steroided-out sky.
The moon is a basket of flowers. But

dig! Dirt is under my nails. I know why
I fling shovelfuls of dirt, but never why

her story has such an end. I know why
I wear black, and I don’t know why I can’t

find her on my own. My shovel tings, it
has hit bone. Will her red curls really be

growing? I claw with my fingers. I can’t
brings her bones to my chest, absorb her, it

would be impossible, would be stars, be
the taste returned to my tongue. She is mine.