Loose Woman Read online

  I Am So in Love I Grow a New Hymen

  Terrorists of the last

  decade. Anarchists who fled

  with my heart thudding on the back

  bumper of a flatbed truck.

  Nelson Algren impersonators.

  Joe Hill detonators. Los-más-

  chingones-de-los-más-chingones-

  politically-correct-Marxist-tourists/voyeurs.

  Olympic gold, silver, bronze love-

  triathlons and several blue-

  ribbon runner-ups to boot.

  Forgot, forgotten, forget.

  Past tense and no regrets.

  No doubt you’re Villa

  and I’m Pershing’s dizzy troops.

  No doubt I’m eucalyptus and you

  a California conflagration. No doubt

  you’re eucharist, Euclidean geometry,

  World War II’s Gibraltar strait,

  the Chinese traders of Guangzhou,

  Zapatistas breakfasting at Sanborn’s,

  Sassoferrato’s cobalt blue,

  Museo Poldi Pezzoli’s insurance rate,

  Gaudí’s hammer against porcelain plates.

  Ay, daddy, daddy, I

  don’t give a good goddamn. I

  don’t give

  a good

  god

  damn.

  Your Name Is Mine

  And holy to me And your spirit

  And that twin of divine

  Death granted me in my sex

  A complete breath And this silence

  I trust And howl This body this

  Spirit you give me

  A gift of Taxco rain

  Fine as silver

  An antique pleasure

  Obsidian and jade

  The centuries I knew you

  Even before I knew your man

  Sex mother me The elegance

  Of your jaguar mouth

  Something Like Rivers Ran

  undid the knot the ribbons

  the silk flags of motion

  unraveled from under

  the flesh of the wrists

  the stone of the lungs

  something like water

  broke free the prayer

  of the heart

  the grief of the hands

  crooned sweet when

  you held me

  dissolved knee into knee

  belly into belly

  an alphabet of limbs

  ran urgently

  nudged loose a pebble

  a pearl

  a noose undoing its greed

  and we were Buddha

  and we were Jesus

  and we were Allah

  at once

  a Ganges absolving

  language woman man

  You My Saltwater Pearl

  You my saltwater pearl,

  my mother, my father,

  my bastard child,

  heaven and hurt,

  you my slavery of sadness,

  my wrinkled heart.

  Little coin of my eye,

  my tulip, my tin cup,

  my woman, my boy,

  to keep and be kept by,

  to rankle and rile.

  Take me like a boy,

  hurt me a little. Make me cry.

  I’m your milk and honey.

  Your Nebuchadnezzar.

  Your ziggurat of pleasure.

  Your thumbprint of grief.

  I’ll be hashish.

  The put aside not-for-sale

  item for the maharaja,

  vulgar as a Liz Taylor jewel.

  Your Taj Mahal.

  Please me. I’ll pet you,

  terrorize and take you.

  Mother of my heart,

  bastard child,

  sweet mama, sweet daddy,

  my saltwater pearl.

  You Like to Give and Watch Me My Pleasure

  You like to give and watch me my

  pleasure. Machete me in two.

  Take for the taking what is yours.

  This is how you like to have me.

  I’m as naked as a field of cane,

  as alone as all of Cuba

  before you.

  You could descend like rain,

  destroy like fire

  if you chose to.

  If you chose to.

  I could rise like huracán.

  I could erupt as sudden as

  a coup d’état of trumpets,

  the sleepless eye of ocean,

  a sky of black urracas.

  If I chose to.

  I don’t choose to.

  I let myself be taken.

  This power is my gift to you.

  Christ You Delight Me

  Christ you delight me,

  Woolen scent of your sex,

  Fury of your memory,

  My hands still on the hilt

  Of that excalibur of hip,

  Blessed resurrection of thigh,

  All these miles, ay!

  Even now, as far away from you

  As desert and mesa will allow,

  Even now, under this welcome

  Rain, yellow roses and honey-

  Suckle vines, I have to hunker

  My cunt close to the earth,

  This little pendulum of mine

  Ringing, ringing, ringing.

  En Route to My Lover I Am Detained by Too Many Cities and Human Frailty

  Damn these damn

  hours between me,

  you. Cities and deserts

  and hours and hours that widen

  like dreams. And dreams that narrow

  like bridges. And seconds

  endless as all of Texas

  lethargic and thick

  under the dogday heat.

  Hurry.

  What matters is to be

  inside the prayer of your body,

  beneath the wings of your eyes,

  the chuparrosa hummingbird being

  in the man flower of your

  sex.

  Dulzura

  Make love to me in Spanish.

  Not with that other tongue.

  I want you juntito a mí,

  tender like the language

  crooned to babies.

  I want to be that

  lullabied, mi bien

  querido, that loved.

  I want you inside

  the mouth of my heart,

  inside the harp of my wrists,

  the sweet meat of the mango,

  in the gold that dangles

  from my ears and neck.

  Say my name. Say it.

  The way it’s supposed to be said.

  I want to know that I knew you

  even before I knew you.

  You Called Me Corazón

  That was enough

  for me to forgive you.

  To spirit a tiger

  from its cell.

  Called me corazón

  in that instant before

  I let go the phone

  back to its cradle.

  Your voice small.

  Heat of your eyes,

  how I would’ve placed

  my mouth on each.

  Said corazón

  and the word blazed

  like a branch of jacaranda.

  Love Poem for a Non-Believer

  Because I miss

  you I run my hand

  along the flat of my thigh

  curve of the hip

  mango of the ass Imagine

  it your hand across

  the thrum of ribs

  arpeggio of the breasts

  collarbones you adore

  that I don’t

  My neck is thin

  You could cup

  it with one hand

  Yank the life from me

  if you wanted

  I’ve cut my hair

  You can’t tug

  my hair anymore

  A jet of black

  through the finger
s now

  Your hands cool

  along the jaw

  skin of the eyelids

  nape of the neck

  soft as a mouth

  And when we open like apple

  split each other in half and

  have seen the heart

  of the heart

  of the heart that part

  you don’t I don’t

  show anyone the part

  we want to reel

  back as soon as it

  is suddenly unreeled like silk

  flag or the prayer call

  of a Mohammed we won’t

  have a word for this except

  perhaps religion

  The Heart Rounds Up the Usual Suspects

  I sleep with the cat

  when no one will have me.

  When I can’t give it away

  for love or money—

  I telephone the ones

  who used to love me.

  Or try to lure the leery

  into my pretty web.

  I’m loony as a June bride.

  Cold as a bruja’s tit.

  A pathetic bitch.

  In short, an ordinary woman.

  Grateful to excessiveness.

  At the slightest tug of generousness,

  I stick to the cyclop who takes me,

  lets me pee on the carpet

  and keeps me fed.

  Have you seen this woman?

  I am considered harmless.

  Armed and dangerous.

  But only to me.

  Waiting for a Lover

  And what if you don’t arrive?

  And what if you do?

  I’m so afraid

  I cross my fingers,

  make a wish,

  spit.

  You’re new.

  You can’t hurt me yet.

  I light the candles.

  Say my prayers.

  Scent myself with mangoes.

  I like the possibility of anything,

  the little fear I feel

  when you enter a room.

  I haven’t a clue of the who of you.

  And what if you do like me?

  And what if you do?

  I can’t think.

  Dress myself in slinky black,

  my 14-karat hoops and my velvet spikes.

  Smoke two cigars.

  I’m doing loopity loops.

  Listen—cars roar by. All night.

  I’m waiting for the one that stops.

  All my life. Listen—

  Hear that?

  Yikes.

  Well, If You Insist

  My body, this

  body, that has

  nothing to do

  with who

  I am. But

  it’s my body,

  this body you

  long for. Sinew

  and twist of flesh,

  helix of desire and vanity.

  These bodies. Your body.

  My body. Ours

  swallowing each other

  whole. This. That.

  Neck. Mouth. Cock. Cunt.

  Little terrorist, you terrify me.

  Come in then. Climb on. Get in.

  Well, if you insist. If you

  insist …

  Pumpkin Eater

  I’m no trouble.

  Honest to God I’m not.

  I’m not

  the kind of woman

  who telephones in the middle of the night,

  —who told you that?—

  splitting the night like machete.

  Before and after. After. Before.

  No, no, not me.

  I’m not

  the she who slings words bigger than rocks,

  sharper than Houdini knives,

  verbal Molotovs.

  The one who did that—yo no fuí—

  that wasn’t me.

  I’m no hysteric,

  terrorist,

  emotional anarchist.

  I keep inside a pumpkin shell.

  There I do very well.

  Shut a blind eye to where

  my pumpkin-eater roams.

  I keep like fruitcake.

  Subsist on air.

  Not a worry nor care.

  Please.

  I’m as free for the taking

  as the eyes of Saint Lucy.

  No trouble at all.

  I swear, I swear, I swear …

  I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won’t Because I’m Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen

  Bring me a drink.

  I need to think a little.

  Paper. Pen.

  And I could use the stink

  of a good cigar—even

  though the sun’s out.

  The grackles in the trees.

  The grackles inside my heart.

  Broken feathers and stiff wings.

  I could jump.

  But I don’t.

  You could kill me.

  But you won’t.

  The grackles

  calling to each other.

  The long hours.

  The long hours.

  The long hours.

  Bay Poem from Berkeley

  Mornings I still

  reach for you before

  opening my eyes.

  An antique habit from

  last summer when we pulled

  each other into the heat of groin

  and belly, slept with an arm

  around the other.

  The Texas sun was like that.

  Like a body asleep beside you.

  But when I open my eyes

  to the flannel and down,

  mist at the window and blue

  light from the bay, I remember

  where I am.

  This weight

  on the other side of the bed

  is only books, not you. What

  I said I loved more than you.

  True.

  Though these mornings

  I wish books loved back.

  After Everything

  It’s always the same.

  No liquor in the house.

  The last cigar snuffed in its ashes.

  And a heavy dose of poems.

  At two a.m. you know

  that can’t be good for you.

  But there I go,

  arteries crackling like

  artillery when I dial.

  East or west.

  Central or Pacific.

  Chicago, San Antonio, New York.

  And when I’m through

  hurling words as big as stones,

  slashing the air with my tongue,

  detonating wives and

  setting babies crying.

  And when my lovers are finished

  telling me—You’re nuts,

  Go screw yourself,

  Stop yelling and speak English please!

  After everything

  that’s breakable is broken,

  the silence expensive,

  the dial tone howling like my heart.

  I Want to Be a Father Like the Men

  I want to be a father

  like the men

  I’ve loved.

  Each with their

  little starfish

  beside them.

  Their bold Arctic flag.

  Their tug of affirmation

  who fright me with the eye

  and bone and jaw

  I recognize and thought

  I claimed as mine.

  I’d like to give

  without disgrace

  my name.

  To search for he, for she

  who is my own to keep

  exclusively.

  To neither

  give away nor loan.

  I want to know

  how love can grow irrevocable

  and prove the fable true.

  A love exists that gives.

  And won’t take back what�
��s given.

  Like the men.

  El Alacrán Güero

  They say el alacrán güero can kill

  you. That’s what they say.

  Of all the scorpions that exist,

  the white one is the deadliest.

  One sting

  makes the tongue thick,

  asphyxiates.

  Before you know it,

  you are another

  femme fatality.

  Beware el alacrán güero

  whose grief arrives delayed.

  Even if all your life

  you’d been warned.

  Even if you’d snuffed

  your eyes to their beauty

  like a passionate Saint Lucy.

  You are not immune.

  Unaware is how Death

  will find you. Coiled

  in your righteous sleep.

  Shake the sheets.

  Stand the bed in cans of water.

  Look before you leap.

  Beware el alacrán güero,

  I tell you.

  I know of what I speak.

  Thing in My Shoe

  Thing in my shoe,

  dandelion, thorn, thumbprint,

  one grain of grief that has me undone once more,

  oh my father, heartily sorry am I for this right-side of the brain

  who has alarmed and maimed and laid me many a day now invalid low.

  I should know, I’m full of its decibel.

  This me that is me that is mine all mine

  under one and twenty eiderdowns.

  I confess

  a certain foppy sappiness regular as the 26-day flow,

  like the macabre Carlotta. Under duress