Michael Vargas

Los Enamorados (in reverse)

I wonder if she knew,

like her mother knew, and

like her grandmother knew

—how heavy the body becomes

when earth settles between unmoved skin like expired make-up

naked vials, canisters, compacts, and doe foot applicators

make soft descents into bins 

before committing a severance bound by the logic of color  

—a sad form of domestic decantation, 

known to them as merely: a misguided use of wands and pigment  

Did they watch?

like their eyes command me to

mirrored faces of women painting intentions before rearview mirrors, 

gazing into reflections the size of palms,

or scrying into iridescent puddles—a picture show bubbled in multi-chromatic predictions

I saw them, untethered by their own reflections

twisting velour shades upon their lips, singing into the showered fog 

telling me: I am beautiful all the same

and blessing me with roasted cheeks conjured by a bronze lipstick bullet 

I never awakened a day after 

without preparing this flesh

the same way they did 

pulling gels from acrylic vases, 

pouring tinctures composed of evaporating roses between the pit of my closed arm 

and bared neck 

Were the eyes, of their begotten men, avoidant of every retouching? 

—hidden behind compressed talc, set in the powder room

or were they just,

like every sharp-toothed stud,

wailing their body beneath a shutting window

howling under the moon

There was no commandment she feared 

No ringlets unabashed by a man’s sword 

unsheathed, only to prove nightly tales with a coarse souvenir 

Instead, she slept

—for a liminal evening restored under oils and cleansing balms 

shrouded under a crown of lead roller sets

Did the men want to be held? 

—the same way I do

Above the earth,

below the sole, 

and in reverse

—dancing like the linen they hung before high-noon

What messages pressed and removed from woven cotton, 

—distilled with the blessings of bare almond nails

pinning men in starch, did they provoke?

leading fools to wander broken paths foul-mouthed in daily escapades

returning like a hollow dog remembering the scent of bed

They could consume every man, if they wanted to

cement his body with a kiss and iron him to pieces 

I watched, like any queer brown boy would,

how she

opened doors with pleasure

engulfed hungry men with an aromatic flame  

unbound his laces, removed his socks, and dismantled the cuffs at his wrist 

did he think that he could finally breath when the bow around his neck relaxed?

how she

advised him to follow the polished floor and remove the day that was leftover 

like a form of some delayed embalming, softened by aftershave 

He could not touch her, or the bed, until he cooled the sun down the drain 

like a poignant flare of household surrender tied at his waist

La Torre burns in Rancho Cucamonga

I remember, when I was young

the times, the feelings

I’d get, 

when the night crept under my bedroom door like sweating car oil 

The kind that spills into a clean room

floods the nose with earth and dead skin

It was my dad’s smell

the scent of his flesh

when I’d pass him his bag of fast food through the window during his lunch

He’d smile, 

motion to the gate keeper at the steel mill

we were family, and leave. 

I’d watch him, 

his hard-hat—whispering past the gates 

following the other men into the melting sunlight of the mill

He was burning alive.

Even after showering with all the other naked men, 

he’d come home and continue to burn. 

He could shower his body in bud light

long after the sun had settled

the beer would never cry to be wiped off him 

It would linger on his tight mustache—cooling his breath with elongated notes of

sadness—that rested in his gut long after the drinking would stop. 

I wanted

my dad 

to carry me.

Pick me up like the rebar he reached for off the bed of diesel trucks

Fastened with tie-straps, covered in red cloth for protection. 

“Don’t come close!” 

he’d yell from the other side of the car door

as if maintaining our distance suspended occupational hazards

that weren’t already damaged by consanguineal love

my father resumed, like every other essential body mandated to work—compressing ashes into dirt under his boots—like making bespoke humanoid gray clay 

We knew, just as soon as he’d forget—that the billowing of smoke from the mill did not mean:

MAN DOWN

but the undulating pressure to melt rebar like men

men didn’t melt though

they burned amongst exploded engines under the heat’s pressure,

spewing boiling liquid and metal glitter into the skin of murky workers. 

In those brief moments, of cosmic combustion—did they shine.

They’d wipe the board clean and put “ 0 ” for the days since the last accident. 

My dad would tell us these stories 

every time, 

and never once did we ask for a different beginning.