The Animals
by Rodney Gomezunder the baleful eye of desert stratus
I count the number of times I’ve eaten an animal
my mouth also a captor
I’m served by a man who escaped Guatemala
wrapped in his mother’s body
like all prey, he moves invisibly
as I tear and grind lamb slathered in mint
I forget he is there
I forget how my sister disappeared
from a Walmart parking lot
and reappeared as a dull knife
in Oaxaca
she stumbled into our house
in the middle of night’s coma
we tried to stitch her together
but the stigmata bristled until she died
like me, the man who mows our lawn
arrived in a piñata, his body
mapped to newspaper and glue
he refuses to give his real name, even for aid
he thinks another biblical deluge is coming
and warns me to make peace
with the country I despise
what country, I want to know
whenever anyone waves a flag
in front of my face I worry
that I harbor an unconscious allegiance
to something other than rain
a secret contempt, the way a knot
infects an old tree
something, in other words,
capable of punishment
