I was friends with a black prostitute
Who hung by the Food City grocery store
On Jensen
Broadway
And Bissonet

With genitals as green
As Cuban coca leaves

She taught me the frozen
Love of women

When I was 13, we talked
In downtown
Freight yards

About Grandpa Willie
Who hocked his medal from WWI
For some beef jerky
And Iron Eagle

About little Ray
an old pimp
Who beat her
While asleep

She vowed never to be
Vulnerable again

Louisiana abuela
And gumbo
Heat

Cover our words
Like moths untouched
By light

We remain,
Adobe ruins,
On cement fields
Gleaming like black water

Clinging to her
Fragile voice
And worn-out tits

I became historian
Of Caribbean sunsets
And Baton Rouge voodoo

On the outskirts
Of Tejas
She whores her
Way toward Memphis gold

Where African stories
Are rewritten on
Plastic milk crates

Donde el sol
Heats the backs of
Men
y Dixie women

Away from
The limestone jungle
And dying barrio

He is the editor of both The Bayou Review, the literary journal for the University of Houston-Downtown and the online journal Coyote Magazine: Bringing Literature and Art Across Borders.