Response to Mysterious Skin

We were walking together through the living room
and beneath our feet exploded a minefield of multi-colored cereal
each tiny crumbly ring burst into a thousand shiny
shards of glass
becoming dust beneath our rubber soles

And then there was a terrible
sublime
metamorphosis
and we shattered like the cereal
like the glass under our gravity
and vanished into the cold linoleum

Animo

hay millones de gaviotas jocosas que vuelan torpes
desinteresadas
y es cierto que los sabados no paran
siguen jalando el sedimento
de las memorias
que te deprimen
o que te desalientan
o asombran por lo dulce que son
y en estas noches de memorias
cuando el viento fresco pulula
y las ausencias susurran desapercibidas
como ninfas atadas al viento
en estas noches estoy yo
riéndome entre el perfume del despilfarro
en las anéctodas que cambian poco
pero te distraen por lo menos un instante
y la felicidad que parece venderse
en las risas falsas
o en las vueltas obesas de esta vida
ficticia
en estas risas existo
y perduro
y estoy con vos.

Thursday

Silky wind passed over my fingertips
as my hand dangled limp from the driver's side window.

The sun had already set
but there was this undulating orange tint
that infected the October air.

I listened to Dave Matthews Band
as I tried to remember what Harold Bloom had said
about Anton Chekhov.

Drew went back to Dallas today
and the fall weighed heavy
on my chest.

It seemed like such a nice evening
but somehow I just couldn't smile.

Gitanas

Granada pringada del olor
del azahar
que orgulloso entremezcla
su dulzura
con la neblina entorpecida
del amanecer
Gitanas, abajo grises
descansan en las umbrías
y recuerdan tristes
el sabor de su melancolía.

I took my parents to the Alhambra once
and the velvety morning air
and the virile morning flowers
made my mother cry
as they dangled
undulating in the crispness
of the dewy Spanish morning
A German man took our picture
and we all smiled with tired appreciation
for that immortalized moment
posed before the Sierra Nevada
while below oblivious gypsies
scurried about their burrows

I took my parents to the Alhambra once
so they could see the swaths of flowers
hanging from Arab trellises
and we found a nice German man
to take our picture that bright morning
in front of the Sierra Nevada
while below oblivious gypsies
scurried about their burrows