Pedro Trevino-Ramirez
Introspection IV
I will not mention death now, or omega, October;
for starters, I will say I am white, albeit my father
wasa spic
and his great-grandfather
was a nigger
who - without mentioning death - stopped breathing
in the gallows of a TexMex village. I imagine him
open-eyed and iron-armed.
That is the value of image. I was born eyes tight.
~
Life without image is a fool’s study. Someone once told me
hell is a simulacrum without comprehension - now a summer heat
lambastes the earth’s avenues, a heavy scent of mesquite
replaces that of flowers
and my invisible eye, chakra, perceives roses that
smell of crotch. My friend, you were right.
~
Before the car crashed and his body was eaten by concrete, fire,
my father may have closed his eyes, fancied if he had not
married a European woman
and that his son was of a dark hue. I mention death now:
if it is omega, October, the bleak season, then he was omicron,
the notion of mid-life ruin.
~
Solitude is a lover’s hell.
Some night, I will drive alone
without headlamps-
my skin could not be darker
than the sky or highway-
and, before the car
coils around a tree and
splinters me,
I will open my eyes.
