Read When My Brother Was an Aztec for Free Online Page A

strikes and sparks.
    Those quick flashes of fire that seem to satisfy
    my mother’s questions.

Formication

    sensation of insects or snakes running over or into the skin

    1. aka speed bumps

    In the middle of Highway 95 I stopped my car
    while a dark cloud of tarantulas migrated
    out of the desert pulling themselves across the road—
    an ebony lake of legs, black vessels launched to retrieve
    something beautiful, they climbed the jagged wash
    in such a way that I wondered if we were all living
    in the wrong direction. Maybe sideways is up,
    and fucked up is up, and down is hanging over
    all our heads.
    Then a semi passed me on the left.
    I can still hear the crunch. I can feel the ones that kept crawling,
    over the others, their brothers and sisters.
    Busted scabs in the road.

    2. aka crank bugs

    Don’t tell my brother. Even though
    he’s been asking, scratching for clues, picking
    at the truth. Don’t tell him
    there really are things skittering, creeping
    across his inner arms, moving and hot, sweating—
    We are, the Exodus. These glowing torches,
    wounds that won’t let us go home.

    3. aka delusional parasitosis

    Dope is what my dad calls it. He never says meth.
    And the dope always has my brother.
It’s that dope,
    my dad sighs,
that dope’s got him.
    My dad once took us to the railroad tracks,
    gave each of his nine kids a penny to set on the rusted rails.
    My brother wanted a dollar, not a penny.
    Because it’s hard to turn a firstborn son away, he got it,
    shoved it down into his pocket, walked away from us.
    We placed our pennies along the rails he balanced on,
    his heels squeaked against the metal, arm stretched
    out on each side. I knew then that he’d do it. He’d crucify himself
    one day, just like that day—arms nailed to a horizon of salt cedars,
    date palms, the purple mountains behind him sharp as needles.

    4. aka sensation on the nerve endings

    When my brother steals my dad’s truck,
    my dad walks through town
    with the hoboes and train hoppers,
    stray dogs, hungry accordions, the dirty-faced
    and gray-heeled girls
    who flock outside our gate like pigeons
    after my brother’s crumbs.
    On these days my dad drags his feet
    across my brother’s skin—
Just to remind him,
my dad says,
    that I am old, I am tired,
    I am his father.

    5. aka meth sores

    We are too weak to say the word
intervention
.
    When my brother nods off, I write it on his arms and face in cursive
    with invisible ink— No one wants to embarrass him.
    You shouldn’t embarrass him,
my mom says,
    Understand he’s a grown man. He won’t stand there
    while you embarrass him.
But I’m embarrassed.
    I can’t understand. Why are we all just standing here
    while he tears the temple to pieces?

Mariposa Nocturna

    Esta luz, este fuego que devora
    Federico García Lorca

    Thaïs has burst my shirt to flames, you say,
    that kerosene cunt,
chingadera.
    I remind you again, you are shirtless,
    sin camisa, sin vergüenza, sin, sin,
sin.
    Brother, I am ashamed.
Me muero de vergüenza.
    Your toothlessness. Your caved lips.
    How light flees you.
Mi hermano, mariposa nocturna.

    You march behind Thaïs anyway,
    mad Macedonian prince,
Príncipe de Coger,
    with only one flip-flop clapping.
    Jeers echo the alleyway,
Calle de los Perros.
    Stop this fool parade.
Estoy suplicando,
    Find your missing shoe.

    Mother’s wet dresses,
los trajes vacíos,
    strung from the clotheslines above.
Un collar de fantasmas.
    How you laugh, Brother.
Ríete.
    You say, They are raining, the ladies are raining.
    Pero mi mamá llueve.

    It is clearly midnight. In the sky a stampede. Elephants
    licking their tusks.
Cielo de dientes.
    This hour is your temple. The waxing moon your altar.
    What you pray for stains.

    Hermano de flautas y pipas.
Rats are wild
    at work building your shadow armor.
    Eres una sombra de ratas.

    Thaïs kisses like an ember, you