III
Mexican Heaven
Saint Peter lets Mexicans into heaven
but only to work in the kitchens.
a Mexican dishwasher polishes the crystal,
smells the meals, & hears the music.
they dream of another heaven,
one they might be allowed in
if they work hard enough.
The Day My Little Brother Gets Accepted into Grad School
he posts on Facebook, the digital block.
all his old friends & crushes come by to dap
him up. imagine the flowers they place
on his lap. he smells them, but not for long.
back when he graduated from college, he threw
his cap into the sky & it fluttered like a bird
with a broken wing. when it landed, my brother
was still broke & unemployed. the day my brother
gets into grad school, he can’t afford a happy meal
& still the praise comes through: my mom thanks
god. my dad offers my brother a cold beer, which
is how my family celebrates everything: a toast.
a drink. my dad prays between gulps. my mom
drinks when god blinks. my family: two fists
colliding. nothing strong enough to stop
my parents from raising a home in a city
being razed or to stop my dad’s steel mill from closing or
the foreclosure notice from landing at our doorstep,
& here we are, my brother is going to grad school:
another promise, the familiar fluttering. my brother
grown in the backwash of a cold beer. in the aftermath
of a long prayer. amongst the weeds in the vacant
lot that used to house our dreams. mixed up with dirt.
ordinary ground. no magic but water
I Tried to Be a Good Mexican Son
i even went to college. but i studied African American studies which is not
The Law or The Medicine or The Business. my mom still loved me.
so i invented her sadness & asked her to hold it like a bouquet of fake flowers.
she laughed through it all. i didn’t understand. wasn’t immigration a burden?
what about the life you left, i ask my mom. she planted flowers
only house on the block with flowers. foreclosure came like a cold wind.
it took her flowers. but that was a season. new house, bigger garden.
mijo, go get some tomates from the yard, is something my mom really says.
i tried to be a good Mexican son. went to a good college & learned depression
isn’t just for white people. i tried to be a good Mexican son, but not that hard.
sometimes, my mom’s texts get dusty before i answer. even worse, i never share
the Jesus Christ memes she sends me on Facebook. if there is a hell,
i’m going express. i hope they have wifi. i hope i remember to share
my mom’s Jesus Christ memes. maybe god believes in second chances.
but i doubt it. i tried to be a good Mexican son. i came home for the holidays
still a disappointment. no million-dollar job or grandkids.
Spanish deteriorating. English getting more vulgar.
i tried to be a good Mexican son, but i kept fucking
it up. my mom still loved me. even when i couldn’t understand her blessings.
she makes me kiss her on the cheek before i leave the house. she tells me
to quiet down when she’s watching her novelas. she asks me if i’m okay.
she tells me i’m getting so skinny & i need to eat more frijoles. she has
the pot ready. i try to be a good Mexican son, but all i know how to do
is sit down for a good second & leave before a bad one.
I Walk into Every Room & Yell Where The Mexicans At
i know we exist because of what we make. my dad works at a steel mill. he worked at a steel mill my whole life. at the party, the liberal white woman tells me she voted for hillary & wishes bernie won the nomination. i stare in the mirror if i get too lonely. thirsty to see myself i once walked into the lake until i almost drowned. the white woman at the party who might be liberal but might have voted for trump smiles when she tells me how lucky i am. how many automotive components do you think my dad has made. you might drive a car that goes and stops because of something my dad makes. when i watch the news i hear my name, but never see my face. every other commercial is for taco bell. all my people fold into a $2 crunchwrap supreme. the white woman means lucky to be here and not México. my dad sings Por Tu Maldito Amor & i’m sure he sings to America. y yo caí en tu trampa ilusionado. the white woman at the party who may or may not have voted for trump tells me she doesn’t meet too many Mexicans in this part of New York City. my mouth makes an oh, but i don’t make a sound. a waiter pushes his brown self through the kitchen door carrying hors d’oeuvres. a song escapes. Selena sings pero ay como me duele & the good white woman waits for me to thank her.
Mexican American Obituary
after Pedro Pietri
Juan, Lupe, Lorena became American this way,
serving crackers at a picnic while a strange wind
swung through the branches carrying names.
Juan, Lupe, Lorena died this way, too, silently
while trump won the presidency & the police
kept killing their Black neighbors & relatives.
Juan died saying it was none of his business.
Lupe died believing their degrees would save them.
Lorena died after loading the gun & handing it over
to the policeman who aimed it at her whole family.
Juan, Lupe, Lorena all died yesterday today
& will die again tomorrow
asking Black people to die more quietly,
asking white people not to turn the gun on us.
White Folks Is Crazy
on the way to dinner,
a white boy runs past
wearing a t-shirt
& shorts as long
as my boxers.
his breath freezes
in the air & leaves
a path of clouds
in his wake.
“i don’t understand
how white boys
can wear shorts
in the winter,”
i say to Emiliano.
“i know. i wear
pajamas under my jeans
& i’m still hella freezing,”
he says through gloved
hands. “you know
they gotta feel it,
shit, i feel it
just looking at them.”
we step inside & wait
for the blood to slowly
repopulate our faces.
Emiliano turns back
to the ghost of the white boy,
& says, “on second thought,
white folks on TV
kill people every day
& they don’t seem
to feel a thing.”
Mexican Heaven
there are white people in heaven, too.
they build condos across the street
& ask the Mexicans to speak English.
i’m just kidding.
there are no white people in heaven.
I Ask Jesus How I Got So White
depending on the population of the room in question,
i get asked what i am. my mom told me i’m Mexican,
but because Mexican women can’t be trusted,
some people want to know if i’m really Mexican.
because i know i’m a questionable narrator
when it comes to my own life, i ask Jesus
how i got so white & Jesus says
man,
i’ve been trying to figure out the same damn thing myself.
Poem in Which I Become Wolverine
after Tim Seibles
i wake up to powdered faces on the news
disagreeing politely while the ice caps melt
& bombs punctuate every day like a period.
what does peace look like but merciless war?
there are more ways to put lead in a body
than pulling a trigger.what do you think
a food desert is but a long sip of poison?
& you think it’s spilled juice,an accident,
as if history books aren’t written by guns.
every day my people confined to a news ticker
below waving flags & rising stock prices—
eight detained in an ICE raid of El Paso—i know
when you look at our abuelitas you see knives
in their braids,knives in their hips,
i know you hear invasion orders when our children sing
sana sana colita de rana. just last week
two ICE officers with cuffs ready to bite
the hands of a fourth-grader.& still
the daily calls to speak English properly,
to trade mangonadas for what type of life exactly?
what is assimilation but living death?
my enemies aren’t ugly-faced crooks, they don’t laugh
while innocent die.they point & say how
tragic then go home to pet their cute dogs.
some days when the newsis the news,
& i’m required to show up on time & polite,
i can see it like a movie. i mean i can feel
my claws coming in,six presidents
talking liberation,casting votes
through steel & blood.i mean six reasons
to end the chitchat.i can see myself on a poster
movie or America’s most wanted, posing with the head
of state.i know what happens to Wolverine.
i know my rage is a poison.i know it kills me first.
& still i love it & feed it.i mean i can see it like
the last scene of a movie:good cop in civilian clothes
walking to their cop car.my six abolitionists
counting up the score,one against history.
i wish i could tell youthe cop gets their morning donut,
i wish i could,roll credits.
When the Bill Collector Calls & I Do Not Have the Heart to Answer
i unbury the boy, pull him out
of the cardboard box in my gut
where i keep him gone. almost
ready for jobs like this.
the boy picks up the phone. hello,
he says. the boy wears a cracked
turtle shell. his name is my name,
but we are not the same person.
when the phone rings, & it is not
a job offer. when the voice is legal,
polite as a razor, i bring the boy.
hello, he says. yes, i am Jose Olivarez.
i play video games while the boy bites
his fingernails & listens. i look at him:
the shell on his back broke beyond repair
& too small anyway. is it loyalty that keeps us
from tossing what’s not useful? the boy says yes,
& i think about napping. is loyalty another word
for fear? maybe i should grab the phone
from the boy. i am the adult, after all.
the boy starts to cry. i imagine the bill collector
lost, trying to comfort the boy who sounds like a man
because he speaks with my bass, the boy
who will inherit my bad credit, & all the mistakes
i am too small to face. it is the boy, in the end
who calculates all the lemonade stands he owes,
who promises the bill collector
he will take responsibility, who hangs up the phone
& crawls back into his shell, back inside my body,
while i stare at a blank television screen.
Mexican American Disambiguation
after Idris Goodwin
my parents are Mexican who are not
to be confused with Mexican Americans
or Chicanos. i am a Chicano from Chicago
which means i am a Mexican American
with a fancy college degree & a few tattoos.
my parents are Mexican who are not
to be confused with Mexicans still living
in México. those Mexicans call themselves
mexicanos. white folks at parties call them
pobrecitos. American colleges call them
international students & diverse. my mom
was white in México & my dad was mestizo
& after they crossed the border they became
diverse. & minorities. & ethnic. & exotic.
but my parents call themselves mexicanos,
who, again, should not be confused for mexicanos
living in México. those mexicanos might call
my family gringos, which is the word my family calls
white folks & white folks call my parents interracial.
colleges say put them on a brochure.
my parents say que significa esa palabra.
i point out that all the men in my family
marry lighter-skinned women. that’s the Chicano
in me. which means it’s the fancy college degrees
in me, which is also diverse of me. everything in me
is diverse even when i eat American foods
like hamburgers, which, to clarify, are American
when a white person eats them & diverse
when my family eats them. so much of America
can be understood like this. my parents were
undocumented when they came to this country
& by undocumented, i mean sin papeles, &
by sin papeles, i mean royally fucked, which
should not be confused with the American Dream
though the two are cousins. colleges are not
looking for undocumented diversity. my dad
became a citizen which should not be confused
with keys to the house. we were safe from
deportation, which should not be confused
with walking the plank. though they’re cousins.
i call that sociology, but that’s just the Chicano
in me, who should not be confused with the diversity
in me or the mexicano in me who is constantly fighting
with the upwardly mobile in me who is good friends
with the Mexican American in me, who the colleges love,
but only on brochures, who the government calls
NON-WHITE, HISPANIC or WHITE, HISPANIC, who
my parents call mijo even when i don’t come home so much.