Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life

Poems
by Yago Cura
Author's Links

In the Immigration Outfield

purpleplush chain-link seats
face the front!

iron-on officers perch
on cushy stools, blinging
the evil-eyed marquise intermittently.

anxious aliens glaze
at their now-serving #'s.

the security personnel
with charcoal shooting
glasses and translucent
earpieces talk into
their maroon blazers.

painterly kindergarden drawings
of stick-pilgrims sailing
into Hudson Bay
line the official walls.

behind the I-from kiosk
subversive toddlers chew
vending machine contraband
while alpha-team escorts
the ringleader out
by the tushy.

i find the c.n.n. strangely soothing.

Argentine Pension

grandmother switchblade
loony brother

furnished room, soured
by the blue record player.

what pure humidity.
what a long mattress.

All sandlots keep a bully.

technician mother
father computer
transparent cassettes
sweetmeat tongue of walnut words.

poemskin.

sopping earth
glass cigarettes
open notebook.

and around snack time,
the cavalcade of coffee.

Miamicipher

Lush, lush germination going on
in a constant state of fuck
or be killed;

the dirty, old viceroys
all wear midnight dress socks,
jelly sandals and varicose bermudas:

idling on rideable mowers.

Gypsy Kings make statements
to cops on mountain bikes.

Latinpopnovellasalsadivas.

Estancerios from Guayaquíl
and oilmen from Yemen share
an upturned, porcelain runway
in the unisex bathroom--and everyone rubs
a little coke on their gums.

Non-solemn somatic sporification:
troglodyte mangos
weighdown the limbs

of sad gravity.

By the pound
at Blue Sky
take-out,

And the cafeteras all call
you papo or m'jito or diga
which is literally speak or say
because I have to push this mop
before I can even get to the greasy
pasteles case.

Static rhumbas and merengue techno
re-mixes spawn out sidewalk speakers
manned by Haitian hawkers.

Jamaican jitney drivers patois.
The American tourists,

in their own country,
get no immunity from
gnatclouds and Juneslop.

Every orgasm is an element
with its proper square
on the periodic table,

Atomic weight: v.i.p. rub-down + one guest.

Line of Sight

My father solders new,
gold prongs to the bridge
of an icy tennis bracelet.
Under his optivisor,
he sets each diamond
with tripwire precision
in its shallow crown,
and clamps the bezel
flush against the four
prognathous tines.
He scrutinizes the
cooked reparation,
under his loupe, and
millimeters to engage
the next link.

I could sniper him
from behind the gold
rolling mill, if it wasn't
for the precious stones
in his cluttered benchpan,
spangling my line of sight.

So I hold my position
and wait for him to look up
from the charred, honeycone
soldering board and sense
he's been fixed.

I need eye to eye confirmation
just before the slug burrows
clean through to the other
side of his head.

I need for him
to know he's only
alive because I haven't
the slightest clue
how to bury a jeweler.

Jungle Room

In the velvet womb of the jungle room
juggernaut speakers twitter queasy innards.

I nurse a squeeze-bottle of expensive water (fourfucking bucks for warter!) as a clean bean dissolves towards
my uncontrollable toes.

Lo-watt lamplight devours Tek-step
poppers and lockers joggling in their joints.

New-wave b-boys gaggle the fringes
of the junglest decks, swaying in place, like buoys.

Rush the junglest! the crowd cries, heaving
like an ocean on a 1000 feet.

Rush the junglest! cross-fading these chains
to wings with Technics.

My eyewhites retract to the back
of my throat as I gill short gasps.

The feelies bristle wildly in my pores
and I begin to dance for the first time,

with my eyes closed. Obscure strangers
muzzled in mentholated surgical masks

grope one another in anonymous corners.
Pixiechix hopped up on assorted narcotics

blow from their open palms a swarm of glitter
that catches every blade of light.

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