belated coward on the step
shot break of dusk
twilight receding into concrete
packed on the alley wall
cigarette ash and the suffocating mist of
a lurid breath
fade.

in a dreamlike wake
time collapses
caught in the hybrid space of
ambivalent mimicry
a traumatic double which morphs recognition
into terror.

you smile
i slip into
La Frontera
and learn to hate
myself.