Walking (Tenochtitlan, DF) with Francisco X. Alarcón, 1978
by Juan Felipe Herrera
Coyolxauki
Escavations
downtown Mexico DF here
archeologists bend down
below us hard hats women and men whispering swishing
brushes uncovering her stone armature body book revolution
sister. We walk on tiny quadrants of consciousness
protein stone disk criss-crossed by knowing and unknowing
we
move on
this is how two spirit wanderers walk to La Torre Metropolitana
swashbucklers in mega— DF
Elias Nandino in a tan suit El Doctor they call him El Doctor poeta
de canciones de amor oscuro y popular like Pedro Infante in a fancy
scarf and wide pants he looks on
with chavos from Bellas Artes slamming together the next issue
of Tierra Adentro Let’s do an issue Pancho says
47 stories up above Tenochtitlan outside
we meet up with Arturo Villafuerte
in his overalls I tell him
to read with some congas and a string bass get some soul
into it he nods órale who
knows where we go next
so we go
who knows where we go and Arturo hands us his
new chapbook – As de corazones rotos and says he has a column
in El Excelsior so we should send him some pieces no problem
la hacemos in the middle of this Onda we run into Ernesto Trejo
huffing it down San Juan de Letrán with his mini-series of poetry
chapbooks – we hang for a while in the middle of the last qtr.
of the century where I saw Macario a few blocks from here in the
early 60’s searching for a hut to be able to bite into
an existential turkey leg this is the life on the street poeta a poeta
we walk on
tacos y cervezas blood chorizos caldos fried fish heads we head
to Gustavo Saenz’s canton in his mini Omni car bubbled up
to La Colonia Roma a light plate of burritas –
what on earth is a “burrita”
I ask
jamón con queso on a white flour tortilla like a
quesadilla Gustavo says in his neat bluish coat —
Francisco makes a deal
let’s Publish a Chicana and Chicano edition of El Suplemento Literario
that we’ll edit for El Excelsior – What do you think Juan Felipe
la hacemos I say.
we walk on we move we rap we eat late near
Las Catacumbas bar we check out a teatro popular –
“La Traigo Dormida” a card board comedy
about how a husband hypnotizes his wife
we leave we hustle to another day with Editorial Katún here’s a
book on the life of Agustin Lara I think I’ll get it for Alejandro
Murguía he has a thing about Lara
serrucho face his dark
melancholy jagged wooly skin his metaphysical attempt to stitch
everything that has been cut open back together again- that
cannot be stitched back together again like we are Azteca
Humpty Dumpties in the Promised Land Francisco I say
wait a minute – stop
why don’t you write about your life ok?
why don’t you write about your love your alone world when
you come to Mexico by yourself that intensity that night
after night on fire why don’t you write about your
real stuff (Why don’t I)
Francisco keeps walking
I keep walking we walk like always dreaming out loud
leaping bloody
torn elegant magical proteins unambiguous new planetary beings
broken resembled faces with a penchant to turn North then South
then North then South to be born reborn into what is does not
matter we know how to walk together the bus station
comes to view I got
to head back to Stanford somehow
no money no food just enough for a ticket to Tijuana
wave to Francisco who stays I’ll see you later when our
paths cross again and we’ll start over the same
way
Francisco dissolves in the multiple audiences
I wave we go
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. "Walking (Tenochtitlan, DF) with Francisco X. Alarcón, 1978" first appeared in Soñadores: We Came to Dream (CantoHondo/DeepSong Books, 2016), edited by Odilia Galván Rodríguez.
“Because We Come from Everything: Poetry & Migration” is the first public offering of the newly formed Poetry Coalition—twenty-two organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and communities, as well as the important contributions poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Coalition member Letras Latinas at Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies has partnered with the Best American Poetry blog to present ten poems in March that engage with this year’s theme, which borrows a line from U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem, “Borderbus.” The poems in this project were curated by Francisco Aragón & Emma Trelles.