Amigos

Tio Congo, Montelongo, Juan Roja y Barbarosa,

Don Mertola, Fran Uribe, Señor Bidawi & Santosa:

one clambered and clawed up an electrified wall

dreaming a vendor’s cart and a hilltop house;

another sang a ricochet of arias through midnight blood

fainted from the mallet-smash of articulating bone.

Another breached the borders unscathed,

but turned into a sex sponge in Kansas City;

that one unknowingly entered the cave of the skull;

yet another recalled the marquis in Zona Norte,

STREEPTEEZE jumbled like broken bones,

then thinks of other things as she threads a rug.

And that one, he just sinks into the couch, every night

after his shift, and becomes a great big papa rellena.

The imperial flower of the Incas lacks a holy remedy.

Quieres ganar? Fight the hierarchy? Orbidalo, these are

the dice: ten thousand down for the rest of your life—

then they toss you out, like yesterday’s lettuce.

Bienvenidos a todos: this is your America.