breadcrumbs

 ***

you once shared with me

your five year plan

and asked me to 

write one too

without realizing

my five year plan was

you, just

you.

***

Hennequen

 

Mexico

at the stake

Mexico

with flaming arrows

Mexico

the scimitar'd

Mexico

the crowny thorn'd

Mexico

strangled by its

own cord

Mexico

The Pope killed

our president

Mexico

that grim art

fabric, twine and

cardboard kaleidoscope

like the scrapbooks

my mom used to make,

and cochinita, to write

on Fernando Garcia Ponce

is to deal with un problema universal

and his personal desperation

precaucion: obra en proceso

rolling stones and Dylan
on the radio
searching the whole wide world
for the holy gringo
(at least that’s what i heard)

and the parque san juan

with the birds chirping

not such

an unusual thing, but it felt

noteworthy

what fantastic reliefs

what sculpted truths

what sacrificial lambs

what serpentine roots

in uxmal, beheadings, for some

great god

and hoops to pass the heads through

wait, no, there was rubber

for that

the heads rolled after

walled windows in the distance

that form staircases in my mind

climbing higher into ____

(i left this part blank

for some reason)

and a palm facing east

the highest form

of expression to the gods

water

refracts

but in blue

light

drips

down the wooden staircase

the best rip off

we ever had, 

as i floated

taking pictures 

without a GoPro

ferrying my cell phone

over the river Styx

like Charon

with a life jacket 

so that it wouldn’t 

get wet 

would i have gone after it

if it had sunk?

And Garcia Madero

who gets into the Impala

on New Year’s Day

knowing

he was never meant to stay

isn’t that a great moment

in the story, 

when everything 

is about to change?

Tu y yo, Merida

Dancing chairs and

Trucks full of hair (rope,

i am later told) upstairs, 

la revista militar

de avacion, aerofotogrametria

beneath the chandelier lights

"they were just towns, 

and now, they are

actually cities"

Jesus, the Meridian teen

who dreams of dinosaurs

in New York, and sells

hammocks from heaven

(cielo is the word,

if you really must know) 

and Yuri Knorosov

staring at me with

his cat, cryptic as the 

Mayan tablets he labored over

and found here, in Merida,

amid easter egg houses,

surely they knew their scribbles

would be immortalized, forever

in a jpeg taken on Jimmy's phone

which more conscientious beings

recovered

long after the world

exploded.

Google Play Store

 I am here

screaming for you to witness

my existence, like

an app that has been

recently downloaded

and whose notifications

have yet to be turned off

sin titulo

 

***

have you thought

about the ways

our faces have changed?

sin titulo

they're all we have

and yonis of strange

and Yucatanian ways

Ladies walking

armadillos through the sand

Gerda Gruber

on the nightstand

beating hearts on

arrow tips and

ceramics

we cannot touch

seashells, and

emoticons, hojas

we leave behind,

even the devil

reads

and when we lift serpents

Above our heads

it appears that we are

kissing

*** 

A Moon Over Mexico

 ***

the historians 

are careful to note

that when the Spaniards arrived

this was 

a declining civilization

the Mayans

and this temple 

in Tulum

with the statue tying

its umbilical cord

to the goddess of

fertility

where the door

gazed out to

the rising sun in the east, 

and i joked that

somebody now should create 

a temple to infertility, 

that these days, such a place

would drive pilgrims from

all the world around. 

and then in Mahahual

me writing

to remember what I

forgot

and my buddy

who rubs his temples

each morning

trying to restore the

mohawk that he lost.

white sand feeding

white necked palms

thatched roofs and

sudden storms

the peace before

and guero girls dancing

in the wake

a photographer waiting

at the break

chirping, as the birds did

laughing

at the ridiculousness

of it all

Their beauty and

the miracle of flaunting it

in impossible blue waters

so much fish

in the sea

when the camera 

was gone

one returned from the land

into fossilized waves

as it was always meant to be

and danced, her rainbow colors

fluttering

finally, free.

***