Not Go Away Is My Name

I DO NOT GO AWAY You have terror and I have tears. In this cruel way, we are for each other. We are at war. You always win. But I do not go away. You shoot me again. Again, I do not go away. You shoot with bullets, but you have nothing else. I fight back. I shoot you With fragments of childhood, where you played the hero. I shoot you with memories of your mother And your little sister, Maritza. I shoot you with spring in the rolling mountains And the taste of plantain bananas and sugar. You do not fall down dead— You can kill me, where all I can do Is hold up the mirror of remembering to you— The mirror of everything you have done. You set fire to me with gasoline. I set fire to you with the memory of your first love. You cut my hands off. I cut your hands off With the way you saw them disappear When you were diving into the warm water of the lake, The summer of swimming with your brother. Do you remember the names of the left-for-dead? The damaged, the hounded, the hurt? Do you remember my name? Your fist is hard. My name is crying. You strike a match. My name is cringe. You lift your foot. My name is pain. You wake up. My name is closed eyes. Your smile mimics the size of the opening On the side of a head, a crude opening That a mean needle will stitch up tonight. Your arm laughs at me with its muscle. All this. All these tears you have made, This water you have found in the desert, All this blood you have drawn From the bodies of so many who needed it. You win. You have always won. All I can do is not go away. Not go away is my name. LEGACIES The bearer of extra strings For those that break. Some footprints make noise and are loud— Walking where they like, Stepping over everything heel-first. They are the bagpipes of walking, The accordions, the Roman trumpets, The bugler’s rooster-call to reveille. But some footprints are quiet— Walking where they’re needed, Always welcome, the sound of rain In the desert of desperate need, Footprints so soft we rarely hear them, Leaving no scratching sound to the ear. But what is quiet is also strongest In that it does not walk away, Nor is its stance in front, or behind, But by one’s side, able to be counted on Even and especially through the wild Noises of the dark. In this we are given The lullaby, the étude, one’s simple hum, The double bass of it all, the contrabassoon, The long, sustained note rising from an oboe, The music underneath music, the work Underneath work: The great gift that—all along— Something magnificently quiet has been the song. THE CACTUS THAT IS MY CACTUS This afternoon, I sit next to a giant cactus—not against it, No matter how many small plaster statues and black velvet paintings Say so. On the velvet, that peasant man is not a picture of me, Not a painting of my brother, nor of anyone else I know. Who is that? Little man in a big hat with the drooping tips of a large mustache— He probably fell against the cactus, was stabbed by the thousand needles, Then died a gruesome death. Apparently, nobody was able to unstick him. So there he sits, a warning to all. The velvet painting is suddenly clear: A public service announcement for Don’t do this. Not that anyone does. I can’t in fact remember anyone at all sitting against a cactus In all the years I’ve lived in the desert. Not any kind of cactus. But if that man is not me, the cactus in the painting is my cactus. It is a wild and happy saguaro, arms everywhere, exuberant. My saguaro, that curious Liberace candelabrum, that supplicant, Arms raised for a century—it should be tired. But after so long it knows no other way, no other direction But up. It cannot stop, take a break, have some coffee and a doughnut, Put its hands in its pockets and walk off for a while In search of the ice-cream truck. More statue than tree, more arm than branch, It is set in the century of its ways. The hairs on its arms stand up, all the time. Afraid, angry, fierce, Thrilled—it’s hard to say. The saguaro will not speak, or if it does, It is very quiet. I myself don’t want to get so close. Perhaps what happens is that I miss what it whispers. But it understands. It takes no offense. Quite the opposite. With its arms it offers me, regardless, A bounty of toothpicks, of a sailmaker’s needles, A writer’s harvest of exclamation points. This giant on earth, done with walking, this one And the rest of its kind making their small town against time. Giver of gifts for those who will see them: You and I, cactus, we are clear on the quiet exchanges The desert makes with its creature citizens. In passing by, and every time, I never fail to wave, As every time I see you, you are invariably—invariably— Waving your arms in delight at seeing me.