Mexi-poet Returns a México

Pero it’s too late.

Every thought es en inglés.

Renata has moved on.

The chile en el elote

is milder than salt, the güeros

more güeros than ever.

The gringos beat me to la capital

and now everything is painful

in dollars, forget el peso.

Now I should feel closer to mi papá,

who I don’t know how to love

and still be a good anticapitalista.

Again I am a little mexicanito

teenager, confused, adrift,

every sentence a storm.

If only I had read it before,

la poesía might have saved me

from a bad case of migration.

Slowly, I try to catch up

with the same old lucha

and the Mexican poetas.

I down mezcal and read en español,

despacio. I know the language,

pero I forgot the meaning.

Mi papá appears

with otro mezcal, para mí.

Lo amo.

Lo amo todo.

I drink, read, and love,

en español.

En español

I read and inside of me

begins una revolución.

Poem for Future Immigration

They said, the nice gringos,

they’d publish a poem of mine,

but I don’t have poems right now.

I don’t even read poetry anymore.

Who was that, what was that?

Last time they checked with me

I said, why, what for. A poem

is not a job, and a poem is not

a taco, and a poem is not a beer

nor a money transfer. But a friend,

un mexicano en los Estates,

told me to write it. Pendejo,

he said, it’s for future immigration,

for a future artist visa, la O1.

You’ll need poems, your poems.

I answered with silence.

Además, he said, poetry is easy,

it stopped being lyrical,

and you, güey, you witty.