Just bust, twisting, one arm
off, half a face & thick curls,
all white white───no: gray
white gray like kindergarten
newsprint, rough, so many times
used & if he had both arms he
would lean, one hip out, cool
like every other child but me
& we are told before we reboard
the school bus that what is left
of him is as perfect as if snow

were to fall inside of the museum:
he might as well be white white
white───or beautiful: first time
saying the word───strange word…
does loveliness hide ruin…what
will never settle & do his stone
curls compare to the unruly locks
of girls & does a fraction of a god
match the worrying of boys?

☼

To arrive is to face extinction
for the very first time───even
Apollo came from Leto, his mother
in a fever of light & if we must be
perfect we must pass through terror,
delirious, blind, all but strangled,
nearly crushed in a filigree so tight
it must be lanced apart…if we are
to escape, if there is to be light &
the red is streaked in white───
a cloak, a wickiup, a swaddling of
salt: the womb is the harm before

all others: feeding, bleeding, sick
of our mothers who do not want us
to die, our very breath foretelling
accidents───even Apollo was like
just-broken calm, no thunder, hardly
majestic, Leto’s dark shape hovering
over him, wishing him into light until
he became her longed-for perfection…
but what do we become, what do I
become, where is our hope, what do
we long for, how can we be born?

☼

Winter, New York City, 1989, sleeping
in hallways or acquaintances’ floors,
sewing alterations after sundown at Sally’s
then rushing to the ghost shift, 2-7 AM,
to wash the wall-to-wall plexiglas mirrors
at the Show Palace burlesque theatre,
then meeting Jimmy, a red brown wasp
of a dancer who calls himself Apollo
because, as he laughs, folks tell him his
body’s perfect for a Puerto Rican puto
& we are off to a loft two flights above
a bodega where he stays as the mantenido
chico of an out of town man who gave
him keys to every door, then Jimmy tells
me I can crash on the platform bed beside
the onyx lion statue, but I am so tired
that I curl asleep by the door & when I

awake the apartment is awash in shadows,
nag champa, candlelight & Apollo is
lighting kush sitting nude in a lotus, rifling
through my notebook from my knapsack:
‘So you write?’ he asks nonchalantly,
‘Write me a poem, write me one for each
day that we hang out together’ & I tell him
I will but he must never steal from me,
never forsake the grace that brought us
together because, I whisper, I don’t trust
anyone & I have never believed in gods
or magic & I know what it’s like to be left
always wondering why someone would
hurt me: then after a while he replies, ‘I
promise’ & hands me my notebook, asking:
‘Can you write me one now,’ then he rises
to stand tall, an estatua, an obelisco, a blade.

☼

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