Garden

THE BITTER AMBIANCE the flakey tip of the cigarette the smoke through the ox’s eye stiffened lungs of five of the six tortoises and also of the grandfather by the way the cigarette butts in the earth in the center table between fingers during arguments submerged in a gravel creek wet in the belly of a rusted bull between the trembling lips the moribund packs with their moribund poet his moribund yellow his feathered hat likewise moribund like that moribund like one time John Lennon bang bang Chapman bang bang the fifth bullet perhaps ended up in the calf of some grandfather bang the fifth bullet perhaps ends up in another forty years with a pen bang the fifth bullet is perhaps air and ends up in a bird yesterday that can’t be forgotten like that moribund like one time Gabriel García Márquez the packs airless butterflies magic jellyfish move multiply accordion bubbles Francisco el Hombre like that moribund like one time some Walter headless it was sheared off as you do with the paper on top to open the pack I would cut the purple lavender heads and store them in refuges of wood paper and ink for the scent I can’t smell surely Walter headless can’t either delicate man he can’t live without a head Walter didn’t die as he killed he went without a puff he wasn’t moribund he died in one stroke like that moribund like one time in bed 9 heart and lungs locked in a duel to decide who would appear under cause of death.

SOME FERNS FLY others are content with levitating gazing from an adult height and even from there you still can’t see the pond even if it’s with fern eyes. They’re content with their round cell nearly imperceptible the fern eats its prison Some ferns fly others fly more their firm fingers run up the stem small and green into the soil they curl in hug the plastic and open their wings with fern eyes you can see the pond as well as the gable roof tiles but not the great firefly the cable is near. You always come back to earth kites don’t fly forever but they fly at least sporadically perhaps the fern doesn’t fly perhaps the grandfather doesn’t fly perhaps the jellyfish doesn’t fly the smoke in your lungs.

GREEN WORK garden in construction the birds write on 4x6 trees they avoid amplitudes (an airless card lies pitifully on the ground) The birds paint with light in 6x6 they can’t fit me inside a square the birds drink from the pond not as we drank between trickles they chat they arrive and chat. A bird isn’t sacred the garden isn’t Mesopotamia but they’re left in peace they drink from the pond chat they undo the garden by night so that the morning has reason you don’t hear with them you sing the air fills your lungs disperses green lungs the air fills your eyes the air abandons the birds the garden needs air the lead buries itself in flesh I remember. The birds no longer sing they didn’t return their head seemed like Walter’s seemed like a hand slice with Gillette blade it was an air rifle and childhood. No.

THE GARDEN PROJECTS ITSELF the film roll dictates version in grays a bird nests in a branch’s shadow the color hides the face of things lavender without purple is grass the color hides the tone of things Esperanza was born albino the black and white hides the seriousness of things health problems in red study lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub. A bird nests in the tree branch of shadow and light the writing of the birds remains on the skin of a shade tree the timber comes out Mexcaltitlán canoes monochrome drop in the lake of colors one next to the other the points stretch the gray canoes have gray points of gray catfish they’ll puncture the monochrome lung of the lake of colors. A bird nests in the tree branch shadow and light they stretch touch the sky without blues with its dark leaves and its pallid bodies refuges are about to crash.

A CRICKET DOING ITS THING always reminded me the skin of a hand that gives itself to the blade’s edge that calmly awaits the hemorrhage pressure the bed isn’t the place for Gillettes or crickets but both end up between sheets pressure lime stops the hemorrhaging cut it so it’s not among the fallen cut it for the trees won’t bleed today. Limes falling upon clay roots it didn’t remind me of crickets doing their thing they escape the crickets fly away when the air turns violent when there’s blood (of a hand and its Gillette) when a lime can’t resolve things a cricket that doesn’t do its thing foretells illness or death lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub the ambulance drowns out the crickets doing their thing an ambulance does it’s thing it foretells illness or death the night splinters it can be heard but it takes awhile the air turns violent it escapes through the ox’s eye pressure sit down brother you can hear the ambulance Esperanza’s heart left her when she was born albino when you’re old the air leaves you heart lungs lub————dub lub————dub hope is born with her heart outside she lives she has to recover the crickets don’t do their thing the rosary does its thing their children on the telephone the wife died several years ago and with her the scar from the Gillette a silence always does its thing.