Nighttrains
By Jayne Cortez
When i blow open green bottles
straight across hump of a frozen tongue
when i shove brown glass
through skull of a possum
and pass from my ears a baptism of red piss
when i cry from my butt like a jackal
and throw limbs of a dying mule into the river
when i spit venom from the head
burn codeine into a cosmetic paste
and grieve into a wax of dried bulls
when my mystical bunions jam eyes
into searching spit of a starving wolf
into cosmic lips like monkey genitals
And i receive my pickled turned skeleton of rusty chains
in the bodega
i receive a symbolic heart made of five middle fingers
in the bodega
i receive a teeth parade of yellow roses to leave the bodega
and cross the rio grande
onto the flatbead bones of a musty nighttrain
I say
to see me loosen jaws like a snake
to see me exhausted after a few strikes
to see me pay dirt to the ice hog
in my masai-pachuca-doo
squatting on a pillow of old zoot suits
squatting among the names and breeds
breaking down cheeks dotted
on this night train
and i say i dream of the 1943 riots
I say i dream in a hailstorm of riots
And i say riots dream into a mass of skins stooping
on flatbed bones of a funky nighttrain
And when i siphon sweat for fuel
from this patron saint of chronic diarrhea
When i turn this rubber face into a spotted puma
and take on the forceful winds of the prune pickers
When my laughter dominates the last seat
And i burn labor contracts into brown port caca
Then I approach in mother of pearl and human blood
in father of smoking and coughing throats
and in my jelly of coyote strings
who is to say what when i approach
I mean somewhere along the road in this cold cold chicken shit
somewhere along the road in this wasted body
somewhere along the road eat stocks, bonds feathers
somewhere along the road confiscate borders from wild dogs
somewhere along the road shove them into the imperial valley
somewhere along the road cry hard
and let this night train sink its
rundown rectum of electric chairs into heaven
and say fuck it
I see a way through the maroon glass of this milky way
I say i see a way through for the cradle of hulls
sticking through these indigo ankles
I see a way through
for these torn shoes stinking like dead cats
I see a way through for these blood-streaked legs
I say i see a way through
for these pus-riddled holes in their suction-cup lips
and when i pass through toothless combs coming from armpits
of the bodega
when i pass through bats on corkscrews coming
from the bodega
when i push my mortified flesh from this bodega
and walk with the mildew of an old zoot suit
walk tall in my mud-packed-masai-pachuca-doo
walk among the survivors from the musty nighttrains
fuck it
I say dreams are like riots
i say we dream in a hailstorm of riots
and I say riots dream into a mass of skins
coming from flatbed bones of the funky funky nighttrains
Jayne Cortez, "Nighttrains" from On the Imperial Highway. Copyright © 2009 by Jayne Cortez. Reprinted by permission of Hanging Loose Press.
Source:
On the Imperial Highway
(Hanging Loose Press, 2009)
