Tonight, let me be
crocodile, curandera,
dark palm and copal.
Let me burn sweet and sweat.
~
Let me be empujar y jalar,
the tug of blue ocean,
a bird pushing sky.
I’ve always been
push and pull anyway.
~
Sometimes home is a border, a rip
in the sky’s black fence,
the edge of a deep, stone well.
~
Desperation and joy live everywhere,
all history echoes times seven,
sooner or later every back bends,
sooner or later we’re all disappeared.
~
Up North when winter’s cold starves us,
we eat ourselves fat,
squander the soul’s currency.
But tonight let me dance myself witch thin
under a thick rice of stars.
~
Let me be habañero. Let me be cascabel.
~
Home is always a hunger
and each god wants sacrifice.
The quetzal cries out from
my heart’s dark door.
~
Oh, mis muertos,
my ghosts,
tonight,
beneath this deep snow I’m born to,
let me be Mexico.