Para Guadalupe
Around the end of fall
Memo would come see me
bringing a carton of bruised apples
he had tattoos of eyes on his forearm
looking
left right
up down
It was summer everyone
went to the pool or the mall
except me and Memo
he was packing getting ready to head upstate again
I asked him about Nietzsche about the prison house of language
He said
this pen
this skin
this ass
I kissed him
I didn’t know I could do that
Jesus never kissed his disciples
on the lips
nor did men kiss in history books
or Disney movies
never seeing anyone in public
hold hands
hug each other
say I love you
we were both naked in bed
I asked him about the apples
the bosses gave them away for free
brown bruises means unsaleable
we smoked herb from one that night
showed each other how to handle
how to hold
how to shift
how we can both eat
an unsaleable
Later in summer my parents started calling me by names
sin vergüenza
joto
mariposa
maricon
I bought pens a notebook
started drawing a point
started to curve around
going farther away
until I was at the edges of the paper
I gave it to Memo’s father told him to mail it to him
A letter came a month later
I opened it
saw an illuminated eye
drawn on the back my drawing