Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

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tiene credenciales  callejeras,  gata sin tejado madonna de barrio

butterfly kites flutter against the ocean air El Morro

plowed earth bullet-riddled boys littering the streets

sloping hills now and then a crow caws

the steady thrum of rain on the windows… late autumn

brisa salada sopla sobre nuestros cuerpos noche otoñal

The key you have not lost                             is there between those spaces, not by or in, but flanked between the here and there, living like a fugitive on your skin. It is a prelude to our memoirs, the text of a poem fused with nectarines, an exploration through Copper Canyon , visions of Haiti ’s angels licking my ears, a hypnotic dance on sands matching the colors that mesh upon your hips, an experiment we refuse to put down, an invitation to cross the doorway of the home I no longer occupy. The key you have not lost is not the manual for a digital camera, or calendar entries for next month’s readings. It is not the Popular Mechanics article you wrote to put food on our table, or a classified add on craigslist. It wants to be the bungee jump into the pangs of a deer in heat, the obitu...

from the text of a slavers journal, words that give history an iron taste

The Illusion You punish me to provide a spectacle of excess—tamp my testicles with affirmations of your power. Your mannequins blow and breathe urgency like naked bald-hydras morgue between Santiago and Lima where desert sands are voiceless. What is different between us is the intensity of our attraction. Oh, how many nooses I've stretch around the necks of gigolos at cul-de-sac social clubs where cellos moan and mouths wilt as I listen to tangos and pick up sugar dropped on the table trying to ignore the blood on my recently buffed shoes.

On Family Days You don’t try hard enough, she’d say. All the while, his thoughts grow increasingly gray.   She can’t smell the fear he inhabits, a macabre work of art from which he comes and goes, the run of wind at a deserted murder scene.   She forgets, as he forgets, control will arrive soon enough, and that brachiated spectacle of blame and praise will dissipate like hurricanes dispel after they touch land.   They’ll both be left wondering about the pieces of debris, the river’s current, and how much to fix of whatever comes undone.

we stand shoulder to shoulder at the wake… days of long rain

Quilts, Flags, and other Wrappings I started the quilt when the only reminder of civility I had was a stuffed doll whose button eyes fell off. Sewed while bathing under the moon’s eclipse and watched you throw my porcelain spoons— a collection of gifts, against the wall. I stopped stitching when you drove that bulldozer in sight of all those present at Jose's welfare funeral just because he was gay and my friend. I glared at the tangled patches of quilt as they threw me into a paddy wagon took me to jail for protesting that unwinnable war. I climbed into bed even as Allen lay covered with Kaposi’s sarcoma to calm both our fears, his and mine. Studied you when a signature to keep your only brother         from becoming homeless made you shudder at the funeral expense if he died while the blotch of endearment you gave him was still warm on that piece of white insignificance. Then I added...

Mr. Morris Mr. Morris was a tenant in my house, and a friend. He wore the night on his skin, a panther copiously sprinkled with stars draped in spider webs. After a long day's work he’d sit by the phone in the kitchen and counsel dying men I’d never see. When the virus spread and independent living was no longer an option he wouldn’t complain, show fear or pain, even when I’d rush him to the emergency room. It was in a sweat lodge with Mr. Morris that my feathers dropped as he rose above the cornfield like a vision. 

Lucas We met one last time before his corpse was washed.   I couldn’t get past the odor of medicine, the skin and bones talking from the wheelchair stopped me cold.   Lucas?   Lucas… I didn’t recognize the proud man I once knew. He said: Come, give me a hug.   I held on to a chair worried I’d faint, but I couldn’t betray the hope invested in an embrace. He found substance in the gathering of friends. I know because I am acquainted   with my sins, and all the ways my fears have killed.

our Sunday feast at the water’s edge autumn evening

Dead Willow [ There is a straw mattress full of bedbugs under the dead willow, where the tears of every whore in town are as open as red hibiscus. It is the only place left to wait. ] We went our separate ways, but when I reached the train tracks I picked up a few rocks to throw at the racemes of trouble hanging in the meadow orchard ahead. My feet, undefined wanderings of a bite, were in pain as I suspect they will continue to be until my time spills over. I knew there was a mystic in the ordinary—(à la Rilke) that would carry me (Oh Orpheus sings!   Oh tall tree in the ear!) through the rest of the day, like that first cup of coffee, or a prayer said in the distant past.

he listen’s to bamboo creaking overhead harvest moon

Snorting Through His Ass He is a medical student on his way to Spain with his intestines full of plastic bags containing cocaine.  He is so good-looking, un sol that thought about little else except his cut.  School became unimportant, la familia didn’t matter. There was nothing he could foresee, not even the possible prison term in a Spanish jail: that is not going to happen.  There will not be any consequences if I keep calm, cool, and collected.    But things don’t always work-out as planned and the beads of sweat are a dead giveaway after a six hour plane ride with your ass stuffed.  Then the “what if” one of those bags ruptures before you pass Customs and you start feeling cold.  Your heart begins to race, suddenly you’re sweating profusely and everything is turning around at 60 miles an hour. You know you’re going to need a hospital, but mother doesn’t know where you are and you’ve arrived with a quar...

morning news: child hit by a stray bullet… head wreath and veils