Poems for Anthony

My brother Anthony passed away on Oct. 28, 1999. I have a keepsake box full of letters, gifts, and postcards he sent me over the years. I wrote two poems during that time, and I keep them there, too. I have never shared them, but I want to now. The writing is immature, but the sentiment, for me, remains unchanged; so I don't find myself wanting to change anything about the poems:

I Knew the Wizard of Oz

I knew the real-life Wizard of Oz -
He could do anything
He read to me Curious George,
Only I was his little monkey, not George
He made a Donald Duck voice and told a story;
A bunch of poor little horses falling off a cliff -
I would roll in the floor and laugh.
I saw him in his coffin,
The poor Wizard,
But he told me not to weep.
"Hang on," he said to me, while I slept,
"Don't let go of the big brother bear hugs I gave you."
I knew the real-life Wizard of Oz -
He could do anything
We grew up, he protected me
He still does.
Everyone knows that the Wizard of Oz
Can never really die.


Time

Has it been a month?
It feels like a day
I stood there and cried
A shell casing in my hand;
I laid it before you
Has it been a day?
It feels like a month
The weak have become week
The strong have become weak
The Wizard of Oz is farther away than ever.
And now we realize how we really need him.

Has it been a month?
It hasn't rained since then.
A month is a long time to go
Without rain.

It's been a month.
Soon it will be two.
We miss him more.
I want him here.

New Orleans

There is no way to capture the experience of New Orleans. There's too much - of everything. Too much color, life, music, magic . . . I couldn't find enough words, and I couldn't put them together just how I wanted. This is the best I could do:

The air hanging thick
with something
you recognize
but cannot explain,
Hot and wonderful
carried up nostrils
To a living brain
filled with colors
from art, bigger than life
colors never seen -
Together, beautiful
While too much music
blends into a perfect noise

Sun shining by day
on horns that gleam
and blind the eye
as dark lips press
and dark hands tap
to give you a rhythm
your body can't resist

Until a stillness falls
and that same horn
is cooled
and shines
with different lights
and makes a sound
that is better
for the night

While dark boys,
beautiful,peculiar to their home,
dance in ways -
only they know how,
with moves that were born
in their nimble legs,
and the sound they make
is addictive -
bottle caps on shoes
patting into pavement

Voodoo
good and bad
on faces
that scowl and smile

Dancing in a street
Thick with its own aroma
A place you can
never really know -
Can never really touch
Can never really leave

Sept. 2010

My Charlie

My Charlie
Who doesn't talk
But isn't silent

Wasn't sure he remembered
when I walked through the door
who I was or that I'd been gone

He humored me with a little smile
let me get in the smallest hug
a kiss
then pointed and grunted
to his pile of French fries

My Charlie
with the crooked back
who used to have a hard time
breathing in winter
who was born so tiny
and slept in a laundry basket

He jumped in my bed this morning
with his tiny stuffed monkey
and his Mr. Potato Head
to smile and pat my hair
to humor me a little more
as I smothered him with kisses

My Charlie
who will take me by the finger
and lead me around the house
till he finds just what he wants
and point
and look at me with saucer-wide eyes
till I figure him out

This morning
he wanted me to carry him around
and let him turn the light switches
on and off -
to make me wish that I could laugh in wonder
the way that he does
at the simplest joys

My Charlie
will always stoop when he sits
and cough in winter
and be stingy with affection
and have magic in his eyes

To Iowa

Four little sleepy souls
and one torpedo van

Molly asked
if Mamma was still awake

All through Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas,
All the long black road to Iowa
The landscape changes,
But we do not

We don't have to be lonely,
not ever

Seven years
Have made a family

We rid
and drive
and laugh and yell
get bored
and laughagain

Too many hours in a car
But we're adding up
The eighth year

Family and friends
People I never knew
Whom I now can't imagine
Not knowing
Will wave us in,
hug us in the driveway;
We will eat at their tables
and sleep in their beds

All the long, long roads
from San Francisco to Iowa,
Arkansas and Texas -
There were three, four,
then five and six
And we will go back and back
and back again
As long as we live,
we six,
Our family

I watch
unspoiled Kansas
Roll and dip its green hills
Its groves of trees
shading over lazy cows
little ponds edged with reeds
Farmhouses,
tight, cozy homes -
Kansas stretches;
My eyelids
drop as if by hanging weights
And I dream the rollings hills
All the way
to Iowa

July 21, 2010

Breakfast

She wore a red coat
As she crossed four busy lanes
Leading the boys
To the bright yellow taqueria
Her hair like red twigs
Her body long and lean
The boys with stiff black hair
Like dark stacks of hay
Bent this way and that

Going for a breakfast
Of eggs, potatoes, and beef
Wrapped in a flour tortilla
Before school

The yellow building
Like a lone flower
In a field of dead things
Perched, small and precarious
Beside something brick and faded,
A building with a sign
Advertising cash loans

A road, unforgiving
Between the buildings
Between the girl and the boys
Between all of that

Skin like bronze
Eyes like brown fire
They hand over a dollar-fifty
Grab their goods
Dash like mad
To make it across,
Make it inside
before 7:05

The teacher watches
the girl in the back of the room,
the only one in English class
who does not speak English

The teacher asks
a brown-eyed boy
who is tall and has a soft voice,
who is kind and quiet
to translate the assignment

the only girl in the room
who is pregnant
and who thinks
no one knows

The girl has hair that is brown
but she wants it to be red,
and the hair dye
makes it look like a copper penny

The girl has a soft smile
with one crooked tooth
that makes her innocence shine
and the teacher wants to cry

The girl falls asleep in the back of the room
but when the teacher calls her name
she sits up straight
and smiles a smile that is true
that is without spite

The girl does not know
that she is beautiful
that she would be beautiful
even without the boy
that walks her down the hall,
the boy in the black jacket
and the slicked-back hair,
the boy whose hand she holds
so very tightly
every day

The teacher thanks the kind boy
who translates the material
for the copper-haired girl
who said she understood the assignment
before she starts to fall asleep again

Roll Call

Isela
Sulema
Mario

The one that sleeps
in the back of the class
eyes so red and tired
Baby brothers and sisters to care for
Cleaning house into the night,
yet she never misses an assignment

Isis
Ivan
Pablo
Edgar
Sofia

The one that says,
I can't do this, Miss;
I'm gonna fail this test -
it doesn't matter what I write . . .
The one that knows the name
of every weapon by sight
but has trouble with adverbs . . .

Maria
Kassandra
Lizette
Juan
Jose

The one who walks in
Every day
with a big smile,
who wants a hug,
who wants to talk and laugh
for the entire hour

Abelardo
Alejandra
Pablo
Selena

The one who creates
heartbreak and drama,
Because if she can pretend,
Then perhaps the personal hell
That waits for her each day
after the school bell has rung . . .
Maybe it won't seem so large,
So real.

Isidro
Lorena
Carlos