Each poem shows the reader a bright flash of an extinguished life through the journey of forty-three poems, each honoring a María murdered between now and 1993.
The grating roar of adolescence / blooming red between my legs, poppy, / the bright girdle coming out of the sky / like a halo.
When I read Norman Mailer talk about / “the swoops, spooks, starts, the masks / and snarls, the calm lucid abilities of sin” / I feel the erotics of correctness.
Livid reminder of who’s in charge here. / Even the heart might seem subsidiary, going on / and on in its peripheral / metronome
The newspaper headlines were all about a miraculous rowboat. / Meanwhile I was teaching kids what to do in case of bullets.
