my round full cheeks have given way
to hollows that reveal my grandmother’s cheekbones

my hair curls and no longer waves
to hint at my fathers curls

And in my coastal home town  the sun has consistently appeared through every season bringing back a slight clustering of freckles over the bridge of my nose with an array of recent sun spots over my upper lip and at my temples

My left wisdom tooth against all odds decided to exit in my thirties and push my teeth forward; I have a different smile now

while a new circular mole has appeared under my right eye. naturally I begin to look like someone different. Don’t know if  my body is a new temple breaking from the past or if it’s honoring it by stitching me closer to those that came before

I like the quiet way that life yields itself to its own tongue or torso tripping on its own soles when it hits a sidewalk
how clumsy can be poetic and you can laugh even after you fall as long as you are in good company

you walk
no matter the direction
this dream
      never changes much
they put their foreheads
to yours And smile

in some they are wolves
that sleep at your side

in others travelers
that gather
with you in the forest

in others they
   point toward a tiger
lurking in your chest

you walk
        and they protect
nothing is wild

        (not even a dream)

why are you doing this
       the longest day of summer of has come
and you inch towards the darkness

arresting migrants off the street
       law you call it, crime you name it
to flee for refuge somewhere else

why are you doing this
       there is a refugee, a cave lion, a tiger,
a jaguar who traveled far & wide

they are not weak; they are not alone
       you cover your face and take them
but one day when the light is the shortest cat

out in the alley watching
          this unlit terror fade the tribunals
will begin and they will knock

at your door looking for Schutzstaffel
          & the camp garrison
and ask you why were you doing that?

I should have told you that there were no coves to run to on this beach’s coast; when I think of you, there is only sadness. The waves crash and the rocks are all ragged, what you hide is yours forever, your responsibility—it isn’t my boat or oar to tend to and maintain

warheads and bombers
      are tied clatterings
of just-married cans tying us to war
again

Diplomacy should have married
the bride, but here we are
to war again

Someone steal the bride
someone make the picket signs

For I, too, refuse
to go to war

This little ribbon of lost meets


the slender and wide ribbon of remembrance.  


all children are ours.        


  All people are worthy of respect


when you can open your eyes again,



       even to stare into someone else’s pained eyes or even your own


                            you can tell


that there is room for compassion,


        there is certainly room

for grace

little well of a heart how full it get when it rains
and your am not prepared to drink  

i saw news today and I wept again; it had to spill somehow
all these horrid ribbons of pain well over in a stranger eyes

human dignity is buoyant and the sacred heart of christ is still
in the west bank

I see the home depot I grew up driving to, the one next regal, behind that cinema is a swap-meet where I used to dig for old records as a teen.  

I see and They came to the place where I most often saw the LA river, they barged into every memory I have and sprinkled their terror rounding up community members with families. Rounding folks trying to make a dime. I have driven down Alondra street more times than I can count.

I see that you have come for my heart but it’s already taken full of chants  Viva el immigrante, long live the immigrant, si de puede, el Pueblo unido jamas sera Venicido.

You have made me stronger in my conviction and my values. Thank you!

No nos desampares en el corazón de nuestras oraciones extiende tu mano y toma nuestra voluntad y devoción al amor por nuestros prójimos cesa la sed y el miedo y como la flecha a la marca impulsa los hacia adelante y aquí en nuestro hogar reine el amor pues tanto mal no puede ser todo lo que hay. Madre nuestra, querida luz de la luces, abrazo a nuestra ciudad con tu manos y ternura.

the S W A T team and L A P D cleared
the way for w h i t e sterile vans to advance
slowly through the crowd of filming spectators  towards the factory and take the workers inside

the family members with mothers,
brothers and fathers  inside rushed
to block the entrance

the S W A T threw canisters at the folks
standing on the sidewalks nearby but its foul
smell that made the bystanders cough could not mask

that unless these officers, these servicemen these agents are Tongva/ Gabrieleño in downtown L . A 
 they are just  I M M I G R AN T S  arresting I M M I G R AN T S

You who came on ships to this continent, you whose family ached for a beginning. I ask you to stand in front of your ancestors as they reached  for promise & solace on this land and ask them to leave at the dock.  Why are your immigrant roots more legitimate than any others? Why should it be ? Is it because you enslaved bodies to built your wealth, or stole land from others to construct your suburbs if this is the reason you claim this land to be yours
what glory are you defending?

for seven springs the harrowing bloom
of inclination set upon my breast called a scavenger
magpie
women working, the front of a restaurant
in a tiny rural town told me
magpies
formed a bridge over the milky way
of white bellies and scapulars; short and rounded
magpies
over which two lovers met
on the seventh day of the seventh month I expect
magpies to emerge full flight from my rib cage

I have started saying "I don't know"
when they ask on what page it's on
Although I know, I have begun not answering
question and letting silence take to the air
but I know the response,  mentors
friends and life have so kindly given to me
the letter with the answers, I don't want to pretend
to be dull-witted--I do know
it's all blood and scrapes and great heaps of
love to know, not haughtiness --

the silence of a library in summer
is pleasing
one pencil's drop is as deep
as an ocean
its sound ebbing towards my shore
of attention
from one end of the room to other the shadow
of people gone
only a custodian and his keys celebrate
this momentous occasion

genocide. on a strip. because the rest of was taken years ago-
fear & anger dominate the bombs. where is your clear mind?
people are people. violence is a crime. where is your compassion?

I am trying to walk this way
north, towards the northern star
but i do not care to arrive at the northern star
I simply look for what is in that direction

I weep with my little pains huddled
like toddlers around me.  
They were so sweet
in their patience with me, waiting
until I was ready. Now I hold them,
their tiny faces giddy with excitement, as I abandon
the ground of functionality for a wilderness
quiet at their side

its in the practice of little devotions
that everything we dig up
can be turned into treasure
or at least a map of where to
or where to not find it

Someone is ringing the bell; I no longer know who they are but I feel the clapper’s reverberation.

I wish you all the happiness of a spring yielding to summer braver, old friend. Please understand I mean no harm.

Things your eyes say:


Your eyes are beautiful, not because of their color or their shape, but because of their gleam as you tilt your head closer and embrace the person next to you.
I know you understand the gift of a small kindness, of a well-meaning "hello,"  and that is why your eyes captivate me with their soft syrup sweetness. They seem doused in sincerity, and it shows. No human makes it to this field of kindliness without crossing the mud moats of pain, but you awoke today and chose warmheartedness' aromatic nectar. And the world reaps its benefit

I am loved. the sun that rose over the brushes
up until it climbed the trunk of a magnolia tree
giggling swung past the thick petals of its flowers
and set off into the open sky.

we hold death as if it were our bride loyal
and unwavering in her resolve to reunite
with us right at precipice of our uncertainty
always insistent, always watchful are her soft eternal hands, for as long as birth exists so does death and for as long our children are born and their mother call to them it matters not what language they are lulled with;  they are ours.

the conclave is over and the smoke has risen white what are we to do with all this possibility, what are we to do but take into our hands

new
        intentional
                             heartwarming
                                                    ­   family before art
                                                             ­   two drinks sibling chat
                                              while singing & trying to match pitch    
                              buying cempasuchil with ma
                my nieces as MOA & Hair Artist (I never escape their birthday parties without proper styling by their 5 years old hands)
all the silliness I can muster, because we won't be making it our of this life alive
everything else for the world
   the door of the heart open for charming
           the mind ready for growing
                  thoughts like arrow on the positive
                        always a new place to see
                             whatever, shall I do ... find a new album
                             find a new book ...find a beginning or some
                            


                                 ­                                                           


                                                   beginnings

You were right about my many educations. Each language, with its treasure and its blindspots, has left me needing more opening
more traveling and more meetings with new people; nothing is static-

I lit a candle so that in this corner, when it might be easy to despair for the world, there may still be light. That much I can do.

The stars still race upwards towards the night and the moon still follows you while you are driving in your car, whatever is here is as  profound as ever, tonight is best to find a silly reason to smile and laugh together

si crees que no te entiendo lo suficiente
para quererte esta bien

no hay ningún pasillo del cual yo quisiera recurrir para hacerte entender

si tengo que ser igual que tú en toda manera entonces eres tú

el que no sabe de querer pues nada en esta vida es igual y yo tampoco

It is you that I hungered for
on the desolate wings of nameless birds
over terrain new to my carving eyes
for the entirety of my morning light
a spring has run, and I dirtied-nosed
rugged from the terrain have always sung
your cascading waters even before it knew
I felt the outpouring exit me

I look at old photographs of picturesque
places we’d traveled to together our faces teeming with a burgeoning smile
that is locked and keyless over pixels
that remain unchanged by time they so dutifully remind me that we used
be together and happy within this gallery of sorts

I am no longer
what you wished
me to be
when the flurry
of the wind comes
to brush my hair
I let it

each of the seedling kindnesses you plant
every small deed you do lives like a
giant redwood year after you're gone--
all your goodwill skipping over time's
lengthy lake to ripple

They have started dressing as civilians waiting
for professors outside their classes taken, even if
they are residents they are arrested to be deported.

What dream of democracy have your tucked
in your shirt's pocket like a card you can pull
out and say "here, free speech" just for show  

Where is it? where is the discourse that democracy connotes?
suing law firms that bring cases against your point of view
because if only your opinion matters then what is freedom of speech ?

And what is freedom of speech used to harm another
but something as untamed and vicious like this country's founding
Who says they will not come after you?

first them, then you ? first the folks on the margins, then you?
you samson , you lie with delilah. your freedoms one by one
extinguishing like candles over constitutional cake

They have dressed like civilians and started taking people. They have dressed like civilians and they are taking people. They are
not upholding a democracy: they are taking it away

sometimes its the little child in your ventral cavity
that overwhelmed with storms of emotion becomes
flustered & suspended in its gusts, unable to touch ground
this youngness of a heart shouts not at the person
in front of them but for relief--

a cherub's hand are as soft as your anger
so do not judge yourself for your irritation, it is the softest
part of you exposed, places you wish to control
carrying the phantoms of a hurt done long ago

gently slide your anger onto my palm
even outrage has a purpose

sometimes all the softness in the huecos
between cavities declare themselves present

You took all your negative thoughts and built a box around your head. The sky only as  high as its cardboard ceiling.


It’s time you start to tear through it. There is another world with its  pull of potential
                with its immense
positive intention
                                             waiting for you

You read about antiquity, believing it is far removed from you. When did those ancients begin to be ancient? When did the world of old end and swallow them? As you walk out your door with your children, the sidewalk is public. You step onto the park and head for the playground to let them play, and the playground is public, and so is this entire park, and so are the bathrooms and the basketball courts, public like the libraries. And just as your day winds down, you open up your phone without realizing it's a new age—your phone is a public space, too. The ancients of greece told that Medusa's blood gaves birth to Pegasus. Now, the devices of constituents surveil Pegusus into birth. When did the world of privacy end, is it in the process of swallowing us up or is it still digesting us all?

it is wild this breeze
                that leaves me       half-tossed
              on the coast
  of my hometown
today it is the clear,    sharpened
chirp
   of a
     bird
       that
        sobers          
           me to
              the world      somedays
                 it's a smile
                    hoisted by
                      a edges
                       of stranger
                        lips
                       other
                      days
                      a boundless
                    certainty
                   of being  
                  I find
               in the               confidence
          of round pebbles
next to rough granite

Dear language you hold everything in the  long expanse of your eternal unfurlment  like the cosmos always expanding

We see constellations we have named
being  pulled further apart  
How could the space among planets  feel like the space between us

we sit and look out at your star
the brightest point is still love

It is 11:00 pm and a flock of quacking ducks  break the silence of the night slicing with the tips of their wings the sky

I will give you a bowl with your favorite grilled vegetables, grains, and legumes


I will grow so comfortable that I will take a  sting bean off your plate and replace it with the sun-dried tomato you like

To share your life is to share your bowl skillfully for the purpose of common joy
and nourishment

long live the birds that migrate
and the people who follow

long live the black bears that adopt
the orphan cubs

long live the grey wolves that repopulate
north of Los Angeles

long live the human kin that stand
next to each other

to protest tyrants, oligarchs, and kings

Friend’s home and laughter/smelling the skin of a passion fruit/ her brother grew/ /coffee beans from El Salvador/we giggle and drink late night coffee


My mother‘s home under foliage/ wind carrying guava leaves / this hour murmurs/ the old earthenware from our people/before they told their names


My home with a desk facing the window/ the books eating ledges/ my dreams are  wolves that cross the desert / silver are the steps of the moon/ still I walk into thirty-two in the green gown

Little twist of hope in my hands this bird feathered and new flies

behind my eyes,  a girl sits with a smile

how simple to be peaceful, how simple to be a smooth pebble but still a sturdy rock

Bless this earth and the people that feed you
The sun that bathes you in light
Bless all teachers that labor with love

Bless this very moment that holds you
How I love you , even as time goes on

Bless the continuation of all their wisdom
because it all amounts to love

To love we kneel And grasp in awe at how it holds up the planets and the stars

It finally started raining, here

in Los Angeles and the first thing we did

was so careless step outside looking

at each other smiling my brother and I

realized that the droplets on our clothes

were carrying the round muck of ash

every day you bcomer kinder


and the slopes of the past are so sheer


that their old painful attendants slide down


without hindrance to you


your grappling with long struck emotions


murky or endless now become your helpers


you can understand and lend a hand


it is yours and you smile because


you can and nothing is too far out of reach


everyday you get closer