Sunday, July 31, 2011

Poem: El Cambio




El Cambio

Viva Gitano, you say, Living Gypsy, and the taste

of Turkish coffee has never been so strong, cups boiling

as our fledgling necks stretch


over the edge. Pájarita, the roof will always be hot.

Beneath our spitting tongues streetlights hum

with dog throats, out-of tune instruments barking

birds that burst rainbow sand, a city where everything


is music. Somewhere, a bottle breaks,

and the lawn chair acrobats roll

their smokesweatsalt into papers so thin they could be dying

leaves. The only tree in our concrete

hookah camp is a browning hand, over-ripe thumbs uncurling


like the fist of God. Rumi sang about a religion

my parents didn’t belong to, and I swallowed

his magic lanterns until fireflies

rattled my wrists, bones blooming not with seasonal

bulbs but with a single banana tree whose undying

leaves were never smoked. A yellow page swooshed

me to the rooftop, attic stairs rotting to New England

mulch, a front porch. Ivy League graffiti scrawled

Change; I memorized which way was East.


Dog throats sing without mouths, walking

flutes puffing musicartphilosophies that rise

over the rooftops, a grape leaf unfolding. You give

me a piece of paper: El Cambio:

As I wrote this sentence, someone threw a chair

into the street.


***

look out the window and listen to this song:



2 comments:

  1. So so wonderful! I would buy your book of poems. And keep it next to the few other books I have as life staples.

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  2. i would love my poetry to be a Morgan coffee table staple. :) We should trade writing soon!

    ReplyDelete