Linda Vista: Of Proper Farewells

O, tender-hearted death,
when it is time for you to haul
my Lilliputian soul away
inside your giant pentapedal palms
—Herculean, innocent and friendly—
sweating with midnight’s milk,
the dusk of children’s tears,
please let us take the longest route
that goes through Linda Vista:
that poor Mexican neighborhood,
mahogany and warm like a cup of cocoa
in the wintry mornings of the life
in America.

There
I want to plant my final glance
not as a social scientist hungry for data
but as amnesiac sinful man
who pleads to see the hand of God
resting on Earth’s waist
if he’s to dies as a man.
if he’s to die at all.

Savor the sound of rolling r’s
with my ear’s uninitiated throat
and take the whole of music in
—amorous drizzles and the downpour of wrath—
one human river of woe and song;
glide my fingers on the top
of an antique refrigerator,
moaning with old age pains,
and fondle the cheeks of napping dust
and dream its dreams of specks of gold;
summon the tint of faded rag,
silent and vigilant at the window crack,
and raise its fuchsia to the world
like bright new kerchief
of affectionate salutes;
or strip down to the bone and submerge
in garlic courtship,
the womb consciousness of a reversed sombrero,
the wailing wells of baby eyes,
pouring chestnut charity over my steel azul
until it smells of cinnamon,
until it bathes in bronze.

Then tie a swing from the half moon
of tired woman’s smile,
purple and parched from day’s hard work,
and with a dried raisin kiss
sweep the whole Americana off its feet
as I bid my unembittered farewells to life
from Linda Vista,
the Mexican quarters with a dazzling view.

Print