These Words Are Synonymous Now
Juan Felipe Herrera
On the way to school I tell my son
remember to read—read fast. At every curb
think of three things, examine the faces
the eyes—especially the eyes, be quick.
The other day I picked up an old paperback
Houdini, The Handcuff King who slipped off
Scotland Yard’s shackles in minutes.
Holding the book in my left hand, I churn it
with the fleshy mound of my palm my thumb
makes small circles on the cover.
These word are synonymous now:
University
Steel
Light
Nothing
Poets
Rags
Words
Paper
I am working on a play—the world in twenty years.
There is a sentry, a clown, and warrior; the slave colony
on the verge of escape from the video eye. The eye
sees everything. Picture the slender man in the supermarket
holding up a small can of cranberry sauce—weighing
the contents he is concerned with a stamp-size
inscription. Ingredients:
sodium fructose,
pectin, artificial flavoring.
Tomorrow his daughter will bleed from the mouth;
the blood will glisten hot, wavy—her boyfriend drinks.
She runs to him; he traps her when daddy sleeps.
There are too many recorded tragedies. No one listens.
Listen to the little bronze gears inside the computer;
everyone owns one, delivers upon the keys. Listen again:
the A
the Z
the Asterisk
slapping, so quiet,
mournful, so pious.
Treacheries.
Falsehoods.
Big words. My friends are afraid to speak them.
The television offers brilliant young men.
immense shoulder braces tumble across the green,
a pigskin against the solar plexus, a broken leg
juts out wanting to kick the audience, sweltering,
saliva on shirts, ribbons, cold bottle Pepsi’s.
I work toward good things, play inexpensive games—
a miniature clay house with two black windows,
pearled marbles with yellowish zig-zag lines,
a funny thumb-size, plastic, German lugar pistol.
I surprise myself. I finally figured people out.
The Rhyme-Master, Elder King of Ink
who bequeathes Grace upon the Speechless.
The Child-Molester who receives tribute
from his political colleagues.
The Daughter-Monkey caged by her own aging mother
who will never talk to another man again.
I think of my mother. Tiny ancient—who saved broken birds
from the sidewalk rubbing their heads with herbs who
waited nineteen years for me to return. I never did.
I read about the Thalamus, the intricate web of the brain.
My friends use these words too:
Literary production
Feminist Art
Ideology—the Underclass
while our little mothers shrink,
die without us. We never say Sacrifice. It smells of
religion.
My Aunt Lela is caught in a second-story above a ham and eggs
diner. She’s eighty-four when she walks she falls
on the cement every time her legs give out.
I tell her to use a cane like my mother did.
People don’t like to hear this, they say poetry must have
a fancy curl in the center—don’t complain, they say.
I ask them so you have better figures?
In the United States
the per capita income is $27,000 a year
in Malawi Africa it’s $160 in Nayarit Mexico up
on Indian land—a bowl of corn squash and seeds.
I sit at the library, gaze across the table; trees, windows
are continuous; the telephone pole connects with the leaves
darkness crawls up the bark, tears daylight to pieces.
These are labels and empty synonyms:
Poetry and chalkdust.
Horror and humanity.
Laughter and spit.
I tell my son—that’s good, learn the cello, listen to
its womb, take your time, observe, survive.
from: After Aztlan; Godine Publishers, 1992