I’m becoming Him.
She sits alone, half-in-shadow,
half-in-stark-light.
Cocaine
He’s on it bad again.
It darkens the petals
under his eyes. All luminous metals
mined from his skin.
He fails her ET test —
fingertip to fingertip,
she can tell when he’s high
cuz his blood throbs into hers
like trainwreck — one hot, wired mess.
Motherfucker! she spits.
What the fuck. She hurls a shot glass
across the linoleum. It splinters into bits.
At night, she sleeps with her back
to his bottle-hard
dick. Both of them
ground to shards.
Survive
She hears stories. Sometimes, her sweet Angel
is not an angel, when his boys circle up
to share tales of bravado, of wilding out
on the trains ~ she stays on the fringes
of conversation, hears scraps of details
that make her arm hairs rise — He’s a fighter,
Googie says. When I got jumped by those
Nietas, only Angel came to my side —
It was eight to two, but he rammed that sucka
with a screwdriver in his side, knocked
another one’s front tooth out — ooh,
flaco’s no joke, they laugh. She cringes
to hear such brutality, she doesn’t like
what it takes to survive in the streets,
Why? Why do you do that shit? she asks.
I do what I gotta do to survive, he says simply.
Godless
Because of one mistake —
no food for breakfast, the girl forgot to say —
she must stay awake while they
suck, scrape the baby.
Small walnut. Hardens, turns
her back on the world. Nurses
her hole. Black canyon. No one tell her
shit. Don’t speak. Leave. Over-
head lights green, pallid.
Emptied of godlight. Girl blight.
Nothing divine. But one nurse sops
sweat from her forehead, stands by
the iron bed.
Grips tight her hand.
Outside, they shake signs at her —
half-formed fetuses, spilt. Curdled.
An urge to murder them.
Bash feathered hair on concrete. Tell
them what she knows —
No one wins, ever.
The sky gray, indifferent.
Taxicabs roam;
stray mongrels.
She hails one down,
climbs into its rancid mouth.
Rolls down window.
Watches buildings blur.
Nothing moves inside her.
God, I wanted to live so
hard. To feel my body race.
Bleed. Fly. Instead, I kill the
best things inside me. Why,
God? And what curse awaits
when I’m twenty-five, thirty? What
scarred, dry belly…my
future, a curled leaf…
I’m scared. Nowhere to turn
but inside. Smaller. Smaller.
Trying not to burn anyone else
with my dumb, hot touch.
God, why won’t Angel turn
gold? Why ash?
Nas
Nobody knows we exist,
she whispers in the dark.
Your kind, my kind. They think you live to
steal cars, I live to sell beer & cigarettes.
Hannah feels liquid,
as if she might evaporate if she doesn’t cling
to Angel’s luminous ribs.
So? Who cares? he says,
stroking her messy hair.
I care. I care.
She pouts. He sighs & sings a Nas lyric —
like a blue smoke ~ ring, it halos the air.
Whose world is this? The world is yours…
He turns to sleep. She eyes the darkness.
Paradise (Angel)
It’s no use.
Never good enough.
Never smart enough.
No matter what I do.
She’ll never keep a baby of mine —
all my boys — Sitta, Googie,
Craze, Flex, Beni, alla
them got sons — only me left behind.
With this college girl and her mouth —
blah blah blah.
And her hard, little fists —
she knows I won’t smack her, so I bounce —
out to Paradise, on Wilson & Starr, where
Joey waits with a wet kiss
We split a gram,
take two long hits
till stars inside the room get
dizzy and spin
My heart’s punched out. It beats
triple-time, a black punching bag
knocked into a blur. I
drink six Coronas as she
licks my neck.
My dick is stiff as
a soldier; it tents
my Guess jeans. But my lips,
my hands, my soul — all the rest
of me is soft. Dead. Limp.
Joey & Hannah (Hannah)
No one told me — even tho’
all these bitches probably knew —
I had a feeling ~ the way
she was watching us, laughing a
little too loud as I sat on Angel’s
lap in Maria’s kitchen,
I pinched him hard on his thigh,
he pinched me back — some
private fight about nothing — but
she caught it. Her eyes on our thighs.
Later, outside, I shoved him
against a brick wall, piss-drunk, and lied —
I know, I know what happened —
he stayed shut, but it spilled
out his guilty-as-fuck eyes.
Admit it! Admit it, you
liar — I punched him
once, twice, a hundred times
on his chest, my fists numb,
then dropped to the curb
& held my chest so it wouldn’t
break, rocking, rocking,
til I was sure I was still
in one piece. That night, street-glass
glittered extra hard. I was
A dead star. Alone in the universe.
Went back to Maria’s,
called up the window —
guess who? this puta waves from the sill,
grinning! Espera, she says, runs down
the staircase. I corner her,
grill — Qué pasó, Joey?
Qué pasó con Angel? Díme. She plays dumb.
Angel, mumbling, ella sabe, ella sabe.
I stood so close I could smell her stank breath,
could smash her sweet face with my fist,
but I wanted to give her
one chance to be decent,
gimme an answer — instead,
she stutters, no sé, no sé,
then runs upstairs. I give chase,
she hides behind Maria,
lacing her Reeboks, all of a sudden
this bitch gets brave, talking bout
voy a matarte, China —
I said, vamos, let’s do this —
and only his tías keep us
apart, splitting the door frame
with their arms, saying
nah, nah, it’s late, nena ~
kids are sleeping ~ and this
worthless cabrón is standing
there, dumb-mute,
unable
to do shit about
this mess he started.
Girlfight, Postfight
Hannah twists her hair into a tight, low bun.
Flicks off her hoops. No earlobes ripped in two.
Joey stubs out her Newport against the brick
wall, crippling it in a hiss of spark and ash.
Angel’s cousins tighten round the girls like a
noose. Bella offers Hannah Vaseline and sneakers.
She refuses: what will scar will scar.
Duke coaxes, You better than her. Don’t
stoop. You got a house, you got a car.
Hannah spits — Duke, fuck a house. Fuck a
car. Last night, she stole my Heart.
Bella blinks, Angel stares.
The girls strut. Circle. Claws out. Sharp-
beaked, they clash — a whir of red, furious wings.
After the fight, Hannah rubs raw aloe
on the lightning welt down her cheek.
A smudged mirror reflects a plain, scarred
face. Like a cratered moon. Outside,
Angie and Joey gossip, two shrill canaries.
Angel’s tía yells cállate! over her telenovela’s muted
violins. Hannah rides the ridge of her scar with her finger.
These are not my people, she thinks. How his tía watched
her fight like a gamecock, bet fives, took sides.
As if she were Angel’s…thing,
a ten-karat ring slung on his neck.
Not a soul: tired, small, gleaming.
A scratched record skips in her head — these are
not…these are not…my people.
Enough (Post Girls’ Night)
While other girls slump on couches,
hair slipping across cheeks, Bella & Hannah clink
Coronas into the sink. La Bella, Tía Bella, she winks
one Cleopatra eye at Hannah, then slouches
in the kitchen chair, tipping ash. Even with her stomach pouch
and thick arms, when she blinks slow,
she’s glamorous as Vanessa del Rio. Hannah’s face is pink,
flushed as blood in water. She kneads her creased brow.
It hurts. Bella leans over to stroke her hair
like a Persian cat. You, she croaks,
you got it good, girl. Angel, he don’t stare
at other bitches all day, fuck around, or beat you. So
stick with him, mami. My nephew, she purrs. He’s a good kid.
True. Hannah sighs. But is he enough? For me? she wonders, privately.
She drops her head. Rubs her eyelids.
Dawn
The next morning, a garbage truck beeps her awake.
Bushwick: a city of hangovers, sirens,
the diesel hum of too-early eighteen-wheelers. Hannah
watches a plane buzz by the window. It takes
eight seconds to disappear behind a brownstone. She shakes
her mussed head. Sunlight warms her hair, lends
her a red-brown halo. A brown wren
flits on the sill. She leans over Angel in sleep,
his body a thin rake, mouth slightly agape, open like an innocent.
It’s this time. Before words. When the city is a blank sheet
waiting to be penciled in, when anything seems possible.
She grazes Angel’s curly fro with her hand.
Sleeping, he throws his arm around her waist and sighs.
Mirror
Hannah stares in the mirror, naked.
What is it that She has…what is it?
She touches a strand of hair. Too limp.
Oily. Her skin doesn’t sheen —
it’s a bruised peach under this light.
Her empty womb throbs.
Slumped shoulders. Sad breasts
pointed away like two dove’s
wings, her hull-shaped
tummy…maybe
Her hair curls and gleams like polished scrolls of wood.
Maybe her nut-skin glows. A tight knot in her throat.
Nothing. Nothing about her shines
except her eyes. She swallows hard.
Blinks up at the ceiling to keep
her liquid light inside.
One
At Lucky’s Tattoo Parlor, Hannah sketches the
blades of her name on tracing paper. .
One. Meaning One Life. One Love. One Girl. One.
Scribe presses wax against Angel’s jugular.
As he readies needle & snaps on gloves,
Angel finds Hannah’s hand. Squeezes.
He’s a scared boy at the dentist,
she thinks, a wince of pity as Angel’s sculpted jaw clenches.
He stretches the long apology of his neck.
Black drops, red blood. Black, then blood. Blackblood.
Scribe carves slow, steadyhanded, thick,
to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge.
Pen grinds. Scribe hums. Hannah sings.
Angel closes his eyes till parlor lights go dim.
Da Bronx
Hannah’s face glows with a strange, eerie light
above the Xerox — thirty copies of a 250-page
deposition. She’ll be here all night. She sighs. Working in midtown,
living in Bushwick, a crazy double life
she shares with janitors, secretaries, doormen.
In Brooklyn, blackbrownred boys
roam streets like wild game, every day is high
season for cops, every two blocks a hunt, a catch, a kill ~
or a cage ~ lock ’em up, throw ’em away…
Yesterday, Gina, an Italian paralegal who chain-
smokes by the fire escape, said there’s an opening in her building.
Good people, she puffs. Nunna that crazy shit.
Up in da Bronx, way up, on the #6, one bedroom.
Hannah dreams about it on her ride downtown.
Apt.
Got it with her good credit!
One bedroom. Carpets, not wood.
Oh well, can’t have everything.
Right off the #6.
Up, past the hundreds.
An hour from the city.
Forty minutes on the express,
Gina offers. A lifetime
from Bushwick.
Hallelujah! Yeah, there’s drugs
& madness up there too — Hunts Point,
etc., but Angel don’t know those cats.
He only hangs with his crew.
October first move-in date. She can’t wait.
Rollerblades
A week before they move to the Bronx,
Hannah plans a picnic at Central Park.
If it’s not too cold, they’ll spread a blanket
on the Great Lawn,
eat turkey & cheese sandwiches
with Italian bread, then rollerblade
at Seventy-second Street, where people
bop & swing in jazzy circles
to big headphones. 3:00 p.m. A date.
She waits with her food-heavy JanSport
as skaters whirl & turn
in spandex blurs.
Dizzy. She smiles,
bright neon buzzing past her.
Bullet
For eight hundred dollars, Leo kills his brother-in-law
on a Sunday. Sun a switchblade
paring people to paper-thin slivers; they
squint, flash in the harsh light. Blaze, tall,
green-eyed, serenades Jessie on her stoop,
all pero mami, escúchame, while Leo plays cool diagonal
across Jefferson Street until he raises his heat.
His flint-hard face won’t flinch as all
four shots–brrah-brrah-bbrah-brrah — instar
Blaze’s bicep. Neck. Shoulder. Chest. Blaze’s jaws open;
say nothing. Jessie covers her hair, screaming,
crawls behind the hydrant. Four slugs roll under Googie’s car,
dead copper bees. Angel’s fist eats
them like a Venus flytrap. He shoots like a bullet from the scene.
Arrest
Her stomach sinks. Beni says,
He’ll be at Central
Booking, ma, or at the Seventy-fifth Precinct.
Catch him before they ship him to the Island.
Once again the ground
swells under her feet,
threatens to capsize her. She’s
broke. Gives blood
to get cash, calls Soli a week later,
goes on an all-night mission
to find him. What kind of God won’t
give us a minute’s break before
letting waves crash down again?
Hannah talks
loud & fake with Soli,
but inside, her heart dull-aches.
Bail (Angel)
It’s 5:28 a.m.
They give me back my shirt, my
jeans, my Guess watch, and
Hannah
bails me out. She’s taking me
home. Never knew I missed
the smell of her neck until
she hugged me.
Didn’t know
I missed
Angel & Hannah Page 6