his mother scolding her daughter
‘you have to give more money,
they’re gonna shut off the power.’
‘you know i ain’t got no money,
i had to buy stuff for the baby.’
he checks the door again for the last time
and flips on the fan to drown out
his breathing. his chest is already
hurting, but he doesn’t care,
it’ll be over soon. he looks
into the bathroom mirror, past
his long hair, past the black-grey bags
under his eyes and concentrates
on the dark center of a single socket
that threatens to tell of a death
he’s been dying for nineteen years.
he snaps his eyes shut.
He puts the pipe to his mouth, his lips
taking the glass like a lover’s tongue
as he strikes the lighter and looks past
his tremendous nose along the thin line
of a blackened tube and finally
centers on the bowl stuffed brillo pad.
from the bottom of his lungs he begins
to pull as he puts fire to the stone
and smell of a melted rock
flowers in the large holes of his nostrils.
he pulls and begins to lose his air
like a shotgun blast. it’ll all be over soon,
his mother begging God to kill her
in the night, his sister rocking
the child to a melody of gunfire.
they all begin to fade, the cops
begging his spick ass to move,
the ragged clothes of his family,
the whirling puddle of Jesús’ pooling
blood, and even his own cowardice,
him cowering before boys who beat
Jesús dead. everything begins
to fade in a haze of adrenalin
and it’s over now, he can continue
he is a man again as he exhales
out the window the white smoke
of his life.
***
Andrés Montoya died in 1999. This is
from his posthumous manuscript which Montoya’s first book, The Iceworker Sings and Other Poems, won the American Book Award in
2010, and it has become one of the most influential books in current Chicano/a
poetry.He has two prizes named after him, including the prestigious Andrés Montoya
Poetry Prize out of The Institute for Latino Studies.
