Lemon, Yellow (Revision of "Grandma")

When I was four, in Grandma’s kitchen,
she stood me on a chair, so I could see
to help her frost my birthday cake –
lemon frosting – everything was yellow.
There was sunshine, and wasps,
a lemon tree in the backyard.

Her stories spilled out in living color:
The swollen red sun that rose on Panama
the morning my father was born;
the wet, choking air that hummed; bats; houses on stilts;
Officer’s Balls with her young Air Force husband;
the old turquoise Chevy defying dirt roads;
oh! the flowers that grew in that rain.

Now I see with adult eyes
a bowed old woman with herons’ legs,
hands soft as balsa wood, eyes pale and sticky,
martini always close by.
I watch her dry up;
shrink;
skin sucked tight to bones as her cotton hair
pulls back and disappears.
She sits stiffly, listening to the television,
winces in pain, and fumbles for her pills.

She rocks methodically in her chair,
swallows her gin, and quietly says
in Panama, lemons are orange.

Hombre Fierro

His name is Fierro.
It means iron, and it fits –
he is metal,
soul of steel and polar spine,
absent of feeling.

His horse is an extension of himself,
moving without motion,
and under the morning sun
not a hair stirs.

He is rey, he is king
and today
he has three hundred men to kill.
But no, less than men –
colorados,
traitors.

His offer: loyalty or liberty.
Those who join him are given guns
and the others are set free
in tens,
to cross the corral
and climb a fence to safety.

He stands, feet apart,
a pistol in each hand,
and picks them off one by one
uno por uno
like pájaros –
as if they were birds.

Afternoon illumines
a minefield of cadavers.
Three hundred becomes one hundred
becomes twenty, becomes five,
and the last man falls,
arms like twisted insect legs,
a bird with broken wings.

The Iron One will sleep well tonight
as the sun sets behind
three hundred traitors stacked Everest high,
built up into piles, of flesh, of hands
carne, manos;
monuments to death.

And under a faceless moon
it is he who is silent and still
and the dead men
who, eyes open, limbs stiff,
are trapped, forever, in motion.

Holes

there is not enough blood in me
to make up for things.
i thought there was,
i thought
if i got through, if i got deep enough
i might find something pure.
but
between,
past flesh and fat and next to muscle,
the ceaseless rhythm of artery
sings out nothing but
stain.

i thought
if i could bleed long enough
i would be cleansed,
that dancing with death
could lead to life –
it’s funny, though
death keeps its own company.

take from me
my razorblade
and you also take
my only hope
of redemption.

unless.

your love
can wash the taste of blood
from my mouth,
can sew up my openings,
can fashion snow from scarlet.

i am holey
you are holy
pour into my holes
and make me
whole.

Return.

So I am going to attempt to use this more, yay. I have been quite poetic recently. Always up for comments and criticism, constructive or otherwise. Hope someone gets something from these.