3 “No one mentions her” poems

  
 
Another painting in La Galería Nacional
 
In a change of tone
so complete I dropped my chocolate milk
which splashed hideously across my tennis
shoes
and caused a clatter of hard soles
on the company guards to come running
she said
But those are all things we have experienced
Those are known anecdotes
she stammered.
I gawked into her hawkeye
unthinking dumb
druid skull face
closed features rancid with thought
or a truly bad breakfast
and said –
but she beat me to the punch
She said
Beat it kid
(She said, scram!)
She said
No one mentions me
in the Galería Nacional.
I slipped around the corner
hand on the banister
craned my neck for one last look
And went down.
 
 

 
 
 
Fire
 
Smoke and shrieks from behind the hill
approaching the house she sees it
the hill is not on fire
not our hill
not our town
never our town
the smoke boils
like derrick smoke
from the mountain
far back behind the mountain
Jerry making shooting noises
with his mouth
takes a corner too hard on his bike
brother five years old flies off
tumbles into the gravel
cries hard and curses
weeps into Jerry's shirt
then they are off again
Oh she says
they are the firemen
They go to and from the well pump
on the back of the bike is a bucket
on the back of the bike now the girl cousin
they jump off, howling
making siren sounds with their mouths
they dump the water on some plants
go screaming back down the road
to the water
screaming back up
the road
high above
far far away
they could use little Jerry
and his brother
And the cousin
No one mentions her.
 
 
 
Chewing on a tampon
 
Two men fight in the street
with a lady cop and a Manny cop
Manuel Gutierrez
Policía Primero
three years on the force
now breathalyzer duty
10 pee em to 3
talking the drunks through the process
and my girlfriend
’s girlfriend in her 2021 roadster
one beer too many
three mezcales into the heat
filtering past the cones
on Belisario in Reforma Oaxaca City
fifteen grand and a night in jail
awaits you
you big winner
you mighty sipper
you bust of a big gulper
and sinner in a horseless pew
Any paper
hisses the girlfriend
give me your receipts
But the only thing in the glovebox
were the tampons.
Manny cop’s moustachios
suddenly
stop their prowling
You are free
to go
says the breathalyzer nurse
from her round stool
in the breathalyzer trailer
navy blue and grey with orange.
True power
Flicking brown eyes
E-cigarette two years out of fashion
like a pointer
Lab coat skirt black platform shoes
The law.
In the aftermath
No one even mentioned her.