The Rose Bowl Queen and the Garden of Eden
In the breakfast night, thinking up new journals,
I inhabit the Germany of my youth, by which I mean
The country of tools where I aspired to be a wealthy man.
Subordinates came bearing roses, and I turned them away.
If you think about, it’s the man in me that loves makeup.
The salmon roast is ready, could you take it out?
I recall my first marriage. Then, I stop to think about my second.
Let’s not bring up the third to the Rose Bowl queen.
Indeed, indeed, indeed. The world-renowned behavior
Researcher wrote me back. I thought he was going to scream, fire!
But instead he told me what I already knew but didn’t want
To believe. I was looking for an easy way out. Aren’t we all?
The Garden of Eden was really just another hideaway.
Then God said, like any good parent, you get the hell out!
And suddenly there was Adam, clutching his balls in the rain.
Eve took better to the pain. To Adam she said, “I’ll carry the load
While you grow up.” She was even more beautiful
In the rain, he thought. The sun was shining on the other side.
Then there was the strange scissoring sound, as when
A tornado approaches and it’s too late to take cover.
Expanse
Once, in Spain, I was walking around the block and two policemen
Followed me in an unmarked car. I was waiting for a bus
To Bilbao. I wanted to see where El Cid was from.
My pulse rose and I tried my best to look normal; that meant
Not walking any faster. I stopped in front of a magazine kiosk
And pretended to read about soccer. The car left, but not before
Slowing down again beside me. The sky was orange.
It was about three or four in the afternoon, and the bus came on time.
The only explanation I can devise is that I was young
And I was wearing a black leather jacket my roommate sold me
Before I left on my pilgrimage to the north.
I don’t live in Spain. I live about six blocks from the biggest airport
On the west coast of the United States. My neighborhood
Is worried that the airport is going to expand, and that the planes
Will grow louder than they already are. I don’t worry about that.
It’s comforting to hear the planes overhead, making
Their final, wide radius over the great expanse of the basin.
You can hear them deploy their flaps and reduce speed.
NO AIRPORT EXPANSION. The north runway they mean.
The one closest to the homes. How does one stop an airport
From expanding? Each bird bigger than the next bird. Filtered out
Over the stone river like geese by the controllers in the tower
That looms at sunset. The broad sky conversions, and the dream
Of flight over your commute. On this point, I am mute,
Because to join a community one needs a country,
And to have a country one needs a war. The testy mockingbird
Haunts the biggest crows; he rides their backsides all the way
To the end of the block and when the crows return
As they inevitably do, he escorts them out again.
He’ll do this until they kill him, and I’ve seen his brethren
— Dead, flat on the sidewalk they spent themselves on.
Where does the sob story go, the institution of the bakery
And the hotel bus boy at the end of the day; these people
Are like walking rosary beads, the smile we engender in others
And the focus group meeting under the shade, potato chips provided.
Work is a novel. The only other pressure is the freedom
To read the boardroom and create chaos. I’m not going for it.
The flowers foretell nothing, even back in Guido Cavalcanti’s day
The headman wore the prescribed hood. I read about it.
He wanted to wear the more comfortable one his wife knitted,
But they insisted on the leather hood that made him scarier.
Imagine the paperwork, they told him. You’ll have to suck it up.
I remember the days when I used to wear myself out playing
In the street. The sun blurred my shadow. The palm fronds shook
In the desert wind. Carpet hasn’t changed, and neither has
Childhood, though everyone thinks it has. A pile of broken toys.
The Cat on the Chair
The noble gasses spread
Into the far beyond, the gas
Cloud is the base teenager.
The charge is notwithstanding.
We are rocking
And not everlasting
Past the houses,
The bushes and the fire escapes.
There are residences
East of the city
That give off strange odors.
Dust mites cover the face of the engineer
As he sleeps. Dangerous
Pipes inhabit his house like snakes.
Does he dream of stars
Or lakes? In the early morning hours,
Rocking my baby girl
To sleep, I sense it coming apart
Then returning to wholeness.
Her breath on my breath,
Her little foot in my palm.
We rock like that
Until I know that she will not wake.
That’s when I carry her
Back through darkness
Then come here to the elemental light,
Five a.m., to the words
And to the cat on the chair
If we had a cat.
Alejandro Escudé received a masters degree in creative writing from U.C. Davis, where he won the 2003 University of California Poet Laureate Contest. Currently he teaches high school English. Having won the 2012 Sacramento Poetry Prize, for his manuscript "My Earthbound Eye," which is due out later this year. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his two kids. He’s also a weekend birder. You can often find him wandering around Bolsa Chica, the Ballona Wetlands, and other beautiful Southern California spots.