Ariel slurs as he chugs his Cisco.
All these Queens bitches do — bet
— when she hits college,
gets a taste of those white boys
& their Porsches, their rich moms —
fuck that — you’ll be old news.
That’s why you gotta get yourself a cheese, son —
a queso on the side ~ women are like wine,
baby…Nah, nah, interrupts Jimmy. They like
Thug Passion — cheap, red, best when you drink a lot —
and yo, they fidduck you up!
Jimmy laughs, slaps Beni a low five.
Angel sucks his teeth, rolls his eyes.
Dime (Angel)
Why? Cuz she one of those good girls.
Straight A’s in class,
but wild inside: can
down a forty like a man. Nice ass.
Chinita too. Never been with one of those.
Googie’s boo wuz Filipina. She gave him two sons:
Mateo & Isagani. And scratches on his neck, son
~ she’s a panther.
He’d catch wreck
for breaking night. He hit her.
But that old drama’s not for
Me.
Hannah’s my dime ~ small. pure. Shining.
She.
Arirang
In the old Korean song, one lover leaves another
on Arirang Mountain. You won’t walk ten li
away from me without an ache in your feet,
she sings. Because that is the nature
of love: memories live on ~ make a home inside a body.
It’s wisdom from Hannah’s home ~ country,
from women who love in moon villages far from the sea.
When Hannah’s mother left Korea with Hannah in her belly,
she stole that song across the ocean,
sang it as a lullaby as she bathed Hannah’s young skin. Years later,
Hannah hums Arirang on her way to meet her first lover,
from the moon village of Queens to the moon village of Brooklyn.
April. Aigu. Balam innat dah. A fresh wind blows inside her.
Last night, the wind shook mimosas on Fifth
so she walks on pink petals to meet him.
Before Hannah
Before Hannah, Angel had crass,
blunt sex — once banged a girl atop a toilet,
ponytail hitting the rusted handle, once up the ass
of a thirty-one-year-old Mexican. Beni opened the door & laughed.
Angel hiked up his jeans and left,
threw a balled twenty on the flowered dresser.
Lust: a tequila shot he swallowed fast,
no chaser. Never had a girl who wept
black rivers on his shoulder,
kept her legs locked like stuck pliers,
kissed the cat-edges of his eyes.
The first Friday Hannah slept
over, she sat up in his bed, her eyes like small fires, she said, Angel, let’s be more. Let’s be real friends, too, You and I —
Roller Coaster
Hannah silently, steadily waits on Angel to call.
One day. Two days. Three days.
Finally, a ring!!! Sweet & lovely
to hear his hoarse, sandpaper voice tickle her ears.
A week or two will pass before she hears
from him again. Is he a player? Did he get arrested? Is he
alive?? She secretly frets, but when he calls again, she feigns coolness,
a lighthearted interest, when really, her whole being
is longing for another chance to be with him, to see
what he will do next to charm her, awaken her eyes, her lips, her heart, her hips.
This is what you get, she sighs to herself,
falling for a pretty sun-kissed boy with longer lashes than yours, girl.
She’s drawing their names graffiti~style in her binder in art class already,
entwined with hearts, stars, & crescent moons.
So when I get to see you again, Ma?
He asks sweetly. Soon, she says. Soon.
Globe
They lay under the wink of the silver globe
in Flushing Meadows Park under a melting golden sun,
(she kisses his neck) they’d just begun.
(she kisses his earlobe) Reading Neruda’s poems,
each word a hummingbird, midflight,
whirs silver ~ blue across the air —
her boy of flint and sinew, quietly despairs.
He sucks his teeth until he gets each word right.
His eyelids shudder every time they kiss
beneath golden-plumed cattails; his fingertips
fluid as they stroke and spin her hips.
She moves him too, those dusky afternoons,
whispering, Tonight I can write the saddest lines,
beneath the shadow of the world’s falling latitudes.
Kiss
Ay, who taught this boy how to kiss
like wind shirring a lake? His glinting,
lean, muscled boy~shape…Everything
he did with his mouth, a miracle —
how he slow-licked a red Popsicle
or rolled a Philly blunt, darkening
its skin with pointed tongue-tip…
In April, they bloom & kiss —
he grabs the wooden slats above his bunk,
hip bones grinding down. But lips —
barely grazing hers —
tongue~twirls. Quick
bites. He knots a cherry stem inside his mouth
& slips it in her mouth, O wicked gift!
Faith
Why are they in love, you ask? Why does
water love sky? Moon chase sun? Light
reflect light? Maybe they love & caress
the hurt little kids hiding inside both of them ~
when they let the swagger down they let
tears. let song. let ache. let kiss. They give
each other space to dance,
to touch, to sing, to sigh, to burp, to laugh,
to stand proud (Pa’lante mi gente! Mansei! Amen), to collapse,
to hold each other sacred, sweet, & solid.
Some red ~ gold ~ fire chemistry ~
body alchemy & spiritual transformation ~
cultural education ~ they are in Love thru Space
& Time ~ like all star ~ crossed first loves ~ Divine.
Who knows why angels orchestrate this Love?
Trust it is Blessed from up Above. Amen.
Weaver
O what a web she weaves! A dazzling
and intricate thread of lies and half ~
truths designed to keep her mom in comfortable
darkness, she’ll say ~ I’m studying
at Carina’s tonight ~ we have a test in math
tomorrow ~ I need my study buddies ~ please ~
her parents, overworked & underpaid immigrants, leave
her be. She commutes on bus & trains thru badly
lit, grimy, urine ~ smelling stations just to taste
one hour of freedom ( ~ Queendom ~ ) by his side, his hand
twirling her curls at dusk. She’ll be home late
after she dances a few steps of salsa with La Fania All Stars
blasting on the boom box of his porch steps ~
mmm ~ a new romance sways in the sweltering heart of Brooklyn.
Hannah’s Parents
(Pssst. Just letting you know, dear Reader, that sometimes,
these sonnets don’t rhyme. Don’t keep
