The Concrete River by Luis J. Rodríguez

The Concrete River

 

 We sink into the dust,

 Baba and me,

 Beneath brush of prickly leaves;

 Ivy strangling trees--singing

 Our last rites of locura.

 Homeboys. Worshipping God-fumes

 Out of spray cans.

 

 Our backs press up against

 A corrugated steel fence

 Along the dried banks

 Of a concrete river.

 Spray-painted outpourings

 On walls offer a chaos

 Of color for the eyes.

 

 Home for now. Hidden in weeds.

 Furnished with stained mattresses

 And plastic milk crates.

 Wood planks thrust into

                 thick branches

                 serve as roof.

 The door is a torn cloth curtain

                 (knock before entering).

 Home for now, sandwiched

 In between the maddening days.

 

 We aim spray into paper bags.

 Suckle them. Take deep breaths.

 An echo of steel-sounds grates the sky.

 Home for now. Along an urban-spawned

 Stream of muck, we gargle in

 The technicolor synthesized madness.

 

 This river, this concrete river,

 Becomes a steaming, bubbling

 Snake of water, pouring over

 Nightmares of wakefulness;

 Pouring out a rush of birds;

 A flow of clear liquid

 On a cloudless day.

 Not like the black oil stains we lie in,

 Not like the factory air engulfing us;

 Not this plastic death in a can.

 

 Sun rays dance on the surface.

 Gray fish fidget below the sheen.

 And us looking like Huckleberry Finns/

 Tom Sawyers, with stick fishing poles,

 As dew drips off low branches

 As if it were earth’s breast milk.

 

 Oh, we should be novas of our born days.

 We should be scraping wet dirt

                 with callused toes.

 We should be flowering petals

                 playing ball.

 Soon water/fish/dew wane into

 A pulsating whiteness.

 I enter a tunnel of circles,

 Swimming to a glare of lights.

 Family and friends beckon me.

 I want to be there,

 In perpetual dreaming;

 In the din of exquisite screams.

 I want to know this mother-comfort

 Surging through me.

 

 I am a sliver of blazing ember

                 entering a womb of brightness.

 I am a hovering spectre shedding

                 scarred flesh.

 I am a clown sneaking out of a painted

                 mouth in the sky.

 I am your son, amá, seeking

                 the security of shadows,

                 fleeing weary eyes

                 bursting brown behind

                 a sewing machine.

 I am your brother, the one you

                 threw off rooftops, tore into

                 with rage--the one you visited,

                 a rag of a boy, lying

                 in a hospital bed, ruptured.

 I am friend of books, prey of cops,

                 lover of the barrio women

                 selling hamburgers and tacos

                 at the P&G Burger Stand.

 

 I welcome this heavy shroud.

 I want to be buried in it--

 To be sculptured marble

 In craftier hands.

 

 Soon an electrified hum sinks teeth

 Into brain--then claws

 Surround me, pull at me,

 Back to the dust, to the concrete river.

 

 Let me go!--to stay entangled

 In this mesh of barbed serenity!

 But over me is a face,

 Mouth breathing back life.

 I feel the gush of air,

 The pebbles and debris beneath me.

 “Give me the bag, man," I slur.

 “No way! You died, man," Baba said.

 “You stopped breathing and died.”

 “I have to go back!...you don’t

            understand...”

 

 I try to get up, to reach the sky.

 Oh, for the lights--for this whore

                 of a Sun,

 To blind me. To entice me to burn.

 Come back! Let me swing in delight

 To the haunting knell,

 To pierce colors of virgin skies.

 Not here, along a concrete river,

 But there--licked by tongues of flame!