Half the World in Light (Excerpt)
My father lights the kerosene
lamp, his beard bitten, hands
wet from the river, where he kneels
to pray in the mornings,
he sits and pulls out his razor,
rummages through a gunnysack,
papers, photos of his children in
another country, he cries a little
when he metions his mother,
Benita, and his father, Salome,
who ran a stable in El Mulato,
Chihuahua, eyes cast down
then he points to the mural on the
wall, the red
angels descending to the earth, naked
mothers with bellies giving birth,
lovers in wrinkled green trousers,
and a horse with the figures
of children laughing on its back, a
goat floats across the night,
a flank of tawdry farmers unfurl
into a sparkiling forest moon
where elegant birds sit on snowy
branches, her is
a miniature virgin where the
yellow flames light up the village
one dancer carries fishing poles
and easels with diamonds
and other jewels as colors, my
father is silent
when he sees these things cut
across my face.
