Where Papi’s Angel Speaks to Me About Love - Willie Palomo

[Larry Robinson]

Where Papi’s Angel Speaks to Me About Love


mijo—i know you have seen the night 

as an excuse to hold your body like a bottle  

 

and drink yourself to sleep in the morning 

the sun will rise bright as an infant fear 

 

in your throat you will not die as much 

as you wish for it you will get lucky 


friends will envy you with their stomachs 

whether or not you deserve it you will lose 

 

women you loved wrong and i know what 

that’s like—to love until you lose hope 

 

in yourself no one wants to talk about it 

how at the border they offered us clean 

 

criminal records our first ride on an airplane 

if we went back to motherland el salvador  

 

it’s so hard to leave and of course your tio 

he went back for a girl said he would try again 

 

the right way but there is never a right way 

to leave we would have never left if there 

 

was a choice to make but men leave to survive 

leaving is what makes us & you will become 

 

a man all the wrong ways which is to say 

there is no right way after your tio left 

 

they let me go—into the blinding street 

with nothing not even a bus route always

 

an orphan this time without a family 

to call a motherland only an address 

 

my eighth grade dropout’s command of 

language & survival—mijo—i made it

 

there is no need for a map if fear is your 

new face learn to kiss him with your eyes

 

open without a border between your lips

	- Willie Palomo