3 Mayo: Whiteout on pinecones
Days & Days
. 3 Mayo That’s a pig heart in Lucy’s hands it’s from the carnicería, the one around the corner, by the purse and shoe repair, the one with a wooden counter that’s worn down from chopping, a skirt on Jesus on the wall. I saw a man walk by in waders, across his shoulders the dead shoulder of a cow. My firstborn baby is showing me where the oxygen-poor blood goes, comes. How the valves are doors. The crimson black of clots. What is fat and what’s smooth muscle. The pig heart, it is really just like our hearts, she says. But what are those branches? What is that basket? What are the infinitely fine parting threads? When she was born I was translated. I don’t wanna go home. After ICE busted a club I got into the comments section with some racists one of whom called me a retard. Fine sure, but I am a grateful retard, capable, have jokes. We wake up, church bells, doing what they do. Then dynamite, why not, it’s la fiesta de Santa Cruz. Last night it was a desfile for día del niño, what day isn’t a day? Even the seriously menacing police dogs were in on that parade. The public works as LEGO blocks. Fina went to bed naked, plus a pair of blinking bunny ears. A throw she didn’t catch. She’s got no Mardi Gras chops, she’s got to practice landing goods from passing floats. We push two tables together for dinner, invite over the artists from Upstate NY. Here’s a detail you can steal: whiteout on pinecones, to label and sort. That was in the story of almost burning down Aunt X’s house, before the story of the semi parapalegic friend on the mesa. Josephine told one of us camping, and Nico wakes up, ready to fight, to kill, but it’s just her coyote stuffy, making coyote sounds. Now that I have sharp knives, for the first time in months, anything is possible, beginning with this camote, which I fashion like a potato. The abuelita returns, her son and his friend carry her wheelchair in their arms, Franny gets a pack of her diapers. I offer a rose. The stunning beauty of a face that’s lived so long! Like crags, canyons, stone walls, babies, slate, cathedrals, ruins, graffiti, black glass, the skeleton of a leaf, cello rosin, tree resin, and something else. Pascal, on the Universal Being: “It is the one and the same everywhere and it is wholly present in every point.” P.S. Most peaceful rest to Martha Silano, poet, called back. What a gift she gave! And when she was diagnosed with ALS, she wrote right into it. Here's "Is This My Last Ferry Trip?"
I am the art teacher, in this little family experiment. I quite like how Josephine’s kitchen still life (acrylic on paper) turned out. See our pink boot salt shaker?