DECEMBER 2014 - APRIL 2015ALEJANDRO MURGUA82

Nature always tells the truthI come with my songs to clean the wounds

Like wind thru the redwoods

Im the hum of the hummingbird

The color of the red-tail hawk

Theres a jaguar within

that prowls the city streets

hunting for a poem

The riddle of the blue jay is my pen

The majesty of the condor my ink

Im the river, Im the rain

The grizzly bears paw

The courage of the wolf and the cunning of coyote

Im the cactus, the nopal, the agave

With its sweet mescal

Im the seashell on the shore that listens to your woes

The tsunami washing away that same shore

The storm thats comingthe hurricane

Beware Pacha Mama

Because only you give us life

And the corporations give us death

You give us beauty and they turn it to trash

So I burn sage to cloud up their plans

I blow copal to confuse their midnight conferences

I offer cedar to protect all the four-legged

and the two-legged

Pacha Mama to the four directions

Pacha Mama to the center, the balance

For the children

And the children waiting to be born

poems by

AlejandroMurgua

ALEJANDRO MURGUA 83

Diablo Moon

he stands at bar

fingers split with cigarette

smoke unfurling from his mouth

an angry Mixtec god

scratching the mahogany plank

the brawls and prison

still ahead

he was 19

scorched as the hills

behind him

She was 28ancient

llorona-mama-baby

in blue jeans

and leather jacket

come to set him free

or on fire

after they escaped

fleeing her square husband

in Pinole

the beers and oldies

looped around his heart

tying his memories

to her hand on the wheel

drunk on plum wine

making out as she drove

one hand around his neck

at 75 miles an hour

and thats when she crashed

the crimson Mustang

twisting it around an oak tree

on highway 4 at the foot of Mount Diablo

the explosion singed their eyelashes

and the five years of rage that followed

La MentiraBecause when you said that you couldnt see me

I knew it was a lie

And you knew I knew it was a lie

So your lie was pretty much the truth, wasnt it?

DECEMBER 2014 - APRIL 2015ALEJANDRO MURGUA84

Mission Noir

T he first time I saw her was in a caf and she looked strikingly like someone Id had an affair with 25 years ago. The following day I saw her againbut this time sitting in a class I was teaching on the theory of genome sequencing. As the hour and fifteen minutes of my introductory lecture dragged byI felt her eyes on me constantly, seducing, her knees slightly parted as she sat in the front row. At the end of classI asked them to write down in two or three sentences why I should let them stay when there was a waiting list of over fifty undergraduates. When she turned in her paperthere were no comments, and no name only a phone number. That alone should have warned me but Im the type of man who passes buses on a blind curve if you know what Im talking about.

After my last class i sat in my office and called the number. Her voice answered but it was a machinethe message was clear. She would be at the end of Dolores Park, where the train runs. i had come to this spot with this other womanwhom ill call Laurawe had made out made many times in the underpass, and once even made love while the J train with all its sleepy passengers headed to Noe Valley rushed overhead. We were young obviously.

i didnt understand the attraction to the younger version of this other woman whom ill call Laura. The young versionhad an entirely different last namei had seen it in the roll sheet, though her face was a twin of that woman whom i had treated badly, very badly during our time together.

Not surprisingly this version of the woman i knew as Laura stepped out of the darkness of Dolores Park into the nimbus glow of the streetlamps and casually opened the door of my car and slid into the seat beside me. She didnt look at me but straight ahead and i could see by her profile, so elegant, that this was Laura, or another version of Laura, or even her daughter. She turned to face me and slowly, very slowly unbuttoned the white silk blouse she was wearing. She was naked underneath. Her breasts were exactly like Lauraswhich froze me. Dont touch she saidi just want you to see. i stared for a long timeminutes maybebefore i raised my eyes. i had to ask her if she was Lauras daughter but i knew the answer was staring me in the face. a silver plated derringer aimed between my eyes. And she said, just before pulling the triggerFrom a woman you will never forget.

ALEJANDRO MURGUA 85

Alejandro Murgua is the author This War Called Love (City Lights Books, winner of the American Book Award,) and The Medicine of Memory: A Mexica Clan in California, University of Texas Press. Currently he is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University. Last year City Lights Books released his new book Stray Poems. In May 2014 SF Weekly named him Best Local Author. He is the Sixth San Francisco Poet Laureate and the first Latino to hold the post.

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