Boca Chica (A Day on the Boulevard)
18 September 2013
Luck bought me a two-way ticket to third world America
Where dreams have destroyed many, pero no todos.
Esperanza is such a tiresome place.
But they serve beer there;
Sometimes a cold can of cow piss that cools your fingertips;
Some limes, and some bad habit.
You’ve had it with Esperanza,
Te duele la pansa, it’s such a tiresome past time–
(But luckily you skipped the second trip by getting enough cornhusks)
When an unforgiving sun accosts your aging Amá.
She runs, rather,waddles like a fugitive until sundown.
She’s different than the American mother, sabes:
The old skin of kin; the stain of a pedestrian.
Pero,involuntary, no seas menso.
“Stop here with your bags in hand, Amá.
Did I speak clearly enough
Or were the cicadas too loud?”
She misses your Spanish, but you’re too proud, chale.
You and your Immigrant Pride—no vale.
Your English is fancy and freed
But what will happen when they figure you’re a different breed?
Ni modo, tienes un nopal en la frente, güey.
Your way light skin doesn’t make you brothers.
They keep walking beyond the tracks, into Las Prietas.
“No te metas a ese barrio sin mi,” she warned you.
Pero there you were: Two brown slugs lugging tamales door-to-door.
NO SOLICITING it read.
Pero tu ni en cuenta. You didn’t know that fancy word yet.
So you rang the doorbell, remember that?
Dang poor fat William Williams did answer that day
But only to give your Amá a look up and down
Down and up
You frown fed up by
Wondering why the ugly legs of old Mexican women look like pistons
Too powerful for daintiness or your Pilate bullshit.
Their hurting knees use to cold and heat
Their hurting hunger and their sagging chins
Rotund asses and protruding love for buñuelos.
And tortillas
And tacos, and tacos, and tacos
And sanwichon
And tacos
By the time Williams was done judging your mother
You were his older brother.
So you fled and left Esperanza behind
To walk back home, unwind, and enjoy being
A boy acting coy.
So you walk and walk,
Finally some walking cause lately all you do is talk.
You walk and walk past two HEBs,
And remember what a pain-in-the-ass it was to walk
The boulevard that day.
Two tired legs and one tired cause
Too proud to beg but hungry for applause.
You sat with your dad in silence cause he was too mad to speak
Or maybe his hands were too weak from building and rebuilding
The small parts that twice before fell apart
To beat you.
So you run
You better run
Keep those legs moving
Even when they’re tired
Pump your legs and be a good son
And meet your Amá at the bus stop
Allí por el Lopez Supermarket
“Amá, donde están todos los tamales?”
“I sell to the Williams. I say my son wants college.”
And then you lived your selfish life
Calling home once or twice
Every month.
Photo by Juan Mendoza
effete scribbler 