space even before I renounced
my blasphemy or bothered to
kneel in the dark.
Nieto
on nights like this I bet you
think it’s easy to lasso the
stars, drag them behind you
like a kite in the sky and in
deep hours laugh beneath
them until bells ring inside
our limbs. tonight, we will
drink the air with your first
year breath, smile beside you
with clear brows, confess a
world of milk and honey and
feel warm from this June day
for the rest of life. on nights
like this we will sit for hours
with wide-mouthed flowers
sharing perfumed smiles, with
dreams hanging from our eyes,
stories in two languages gushing
from our lips and you Oliver
will know the ancient songs
with certainty flowing in your
saintly blood!
Tompkins Square
when the moon rises
above the rooftops I
find time to play with
shadows that make me
think about meeting you
nearly every day on the
same bench in Tompkins
Square park. we talked
of abandoned tenements,
vagabond cats singing into
the early morning dark, new
immigrants squatting in the
empty buildings, the Ukrainians
at tables on first Avenue eating
beet borscht, the hundreds of
hustlers on New York’s streets
strumming guitars, entertaining
the public with jokes or begging
to make the next meal. you looked
innocent on the Lower East Side,
a foreigner still dreaming of the
warm sun that pranced the edges
of the rainforest, never troubled
about having no place in the new
world, your voice gently falling
into me and the stars declaring
you alive. I held your clay hand
in mine, loved you completely
and promised to tell the world to
see life in your undocumented
flesh.
Steal Away
I spent many hours walking
the streets, crossing bridges
into other boroughs at night
to get a good look at the city
in glimmering light, feeling
the cool breeze brushing the
dirt from the corduroy jacket
given to me by an elderly Puerto
Rican man who saw me sleeping
alone in the basement behind
Cookies apartment. Often, I
went to the rooftop thinking
about old bible school stories,
imaging it a place like Mount
Sinai, looking for miles in the
dark for a revelation that would
give me endless reasons to hope
and dream. I walked down the
Grand Concourse in shoes with
holes, surrounded by people I
did not know, smiling at the sweet
sound of Spanish dropping from
their tongues, sometimes stopping
on the corner like it was a bank
on the river Jordan where slaves
wept for freedom, to cry like a
captive eager for the Promised
Land. I spent many hours alone
in cities far, near and across a
vast sea, waiting for the sweet
rolling of the river troubled from
above to see me and the earth’s
despised children to the other
side.
Dead Friends
I have survived longer than
the violent nights that left
me with mysterious gifts,
laden with the sound of your
voices that still haunt these
streets and only your sweet
traces know how to penetrate
my darkness. I have spent a
lifetime offering explanations
for the broken worlds God must
see, remembering the names of
our streets, the building numbers,
the public schools, the polished
nails worn by the Puerto Rican
girls, the smell of apartments
with food slowly cooking on
stoves, the Spanish words on cut
paper placed on bedroom altars
full of Saints with otherworldly
looks and the nightmares made
from hellish times. nothing is
like having you roam about in
my dreams, hearing you carefully
tell stories refined in the afterlife
and observing your lewd gestures
for God who took you from these
streets. I still hum the old tunes
we listened to until dawn every
Saturday on the stoop, sit quietly
watching evening shadows sink into
darkness and pray to make the
flowers on the fire escape send
touchable miracles.