A Portrait of My Father and Grandfather Laboring in Southern California (In The Shape of Leaves)

Remnants of your reanimation are strewn about every

sidewalk; bleeding instances of your billowy intestines as autumnal tears

and crushed twigs under leather. I have accumulated you with my eyes;

you are a portrait of memory, skin, and blood in shades of decay. How

pieces of you ripped from the joint and flew out towards dirt-heavens

and concrete-hells, and how your conquered conglomerate bled out from

under car-bodies. You are a red-fine for the season until you are too

carmine to complement pristine shaved-ecosystems; you are brown, and

only good in moderation. You’re as common as mud under their heels;

you’re always a newfound gold between my fingers. I watch your body be

reassembled in little exhibits across campus; inoffensive and charitable in

your spatial existence. I take from your body and splay you across every

patio, Princeton roof, and every porch, where you become the seasonal

reminder of laborious love. One day, it will come that I will leave you as

you were gathered, and by then, I will be but an additional nuisance to

rake; my bones, an unaesthetic breakage of your blood.

limpieza///

en los montes no se aprende leer / se

aprende cantar / y haci poesías atrapaban

vírgenes / la manda español filtra por la

ventana / arrastrando fetos / mama

pensaba que con leer / semen de leche ‘te

amo’ / hímenes desvanecen en sal /

mujermorena dique la palabra era fórmula

/ eye render infer / tile / eye lurn woman

fone / tikly / mama sung tú mi en la cuna

to kip mi barren / dijo que no me dejaba /

quedar blanca como su vientre / y cuando

dejo mis cobijas y mandilas hechas leches

/ que protegen / del ojo malo y baboso /

no me lavaria con yemas ni salvia / eye

opun da book of skin / may be eye caym

tú hav mi seel / pulvur eyes /

yu don lurn tú reed en da montyns / yu

lurn to syng / and thats howe poems cot

virgins / da spanish order filturs fru the

windowe / trawling fetuses / mama thot

that tú reed / milksemen “i luv yew” /

hymen dizolv en salt / brownwoman say

that wird es formula / eye render infer /

tile / ay lurn woman fone / tikly / mama

sung tú mi en the crib to kip mi barren /

tells mi not tú let miself / bi wite like hir

wum / and wen eye leav mi linens and

vayls of milk / that protek mi / from evil

and lussful eyes / eye won wash myself

with yolk nor salvia / eye opun da book

of skin / may be eye caym tú hav mi seel /

pulvur eyes