from THE HANDSOME WORLD
. . . You see the sky, and how it drips with rain like old
rafters, and from its corners birds swoop out and dive, you
see this land, the uniformity against cruel angry mountains,
I see it all; the glare of chrome and glaze of windows,
the suspense and ambition of young boys playing baseball
in parks, and sidewalks splattered with the night’s blood,
and the policeman sleeping with his wife and farting in
the bathroom, and then after, so groomed and polished,
passing shops along the street, hello he says to one,
hello to another. I sleep in the grass thinking of this,
and can be arrested for sleeping on the grass, and I laugh
looking at the sky, filling the sky with my laughter,
the treetops bend and birds scatter out.
Jimmy Santiago Baca. Immigrants in Our Own Land (1979)
