Emmy Pérez


It's Pouring

it's pouring boys racing past lowered red truck stopped in hollywood
flitter. she said it's pouring conjunto. he said it's pouring gals with
tight jeans lit up with wow pow lights. it's pouring morning in cerveza
bottles, cucarachas walking upright on walls. security in golf cart
rounds checking it all out. it's pouring young men grabbing gals for
public kisses. the smell of lemongrass and urine pouring from
stadium lights. it's pouring green parakeets squawking in between
tall-glass-of-water mesquites, between telephone wires dangling the
bluest notes. it's pouring squabbling over grammar and patrol zones
– oops, the nose lit up red when metal tweezers dipped in. it's
pouring dropping in unannounced without sotol or ether. it's pouring
conspiracy theories – thunder breaking beak calls & two second
respites from hot weather.


November

It could be the jaguarundi’s
Blood on my face


December

Thinking all afternoon of Gloria Anzaldúa then indigo snake lifted a
gorgeous head a field and river from México.

All week before: Dickinson: “To Ache is human – not polite –”

All twilight: indio snake, javelinas, rabbit, cloudy emerald water, the
sound of frogs. The acrylic smell of carrizo. Deepish sleep and a
woman we both knew emerging peacefully from the lake. Coyote
caca and light green moss on the dirt path to the rio. Spiders making
small canopies between leaves. Fire ants and mulberries and snail
shells. Mexican bluewings and lots of oxygen.

-all three poems previously published at Achiote Seeds


Solstice
-the americas

War in sun country
Lights water with orphans.
Braids sawed off. As if arms.

Pray for snow, and thistle
Blooms purple along

Roads. Amaranth grows
Beyond the harvest.

*

Morning sky: more meadow
Than metal. A clear-eyed orphan

With stars on her tongue,

Hiding her siblings
In the sun glow.

A soldier knows a kiss
Won't open that mouth.

-from the book Solstice