timing &

                    by Steven Alvarez 


walking & drinking but asking first may I hold yr hand
& kisses soft kisses arms thru arms

walk you to yr train warm wind warmer

strolling together & instead let’s sit
at Washington Square until cops kick us out

& then north to Union Square hugging
you felt that

             New York, September 2009


btwn porn & mango?
if that last sequence
was making a point abt melon

as in making melonaise
witnessing
& complicit

w/ melonhusking
watching from window
but there’s no other way

to make that point
except to perform
the whole sequence

process sans melon
& we are indeed docile
totally undermines

point of the point
to begin
& i: thanks again for inviting me

to watch mango sucking
& smoke clove cigarettes w/ you
yes on several sides lower east

cheers
gentle babbit

             New York City: 4 March 2007


my mother never used a rotan
her chancla was good enough

I know how to make a belt pop
but that I reckon won't fly w/ 8th graders

& fireflies indeed make me happy
tho I haven’t seen any since I lived in Alabama

when stars fell
too short of a trip

I have abt four more weeks here
last weekend a friend from AZ came to visit

& my cousin took us on a trip to Acapulco
where my skin burned something nice

esp my white legs & where
on a particular beach

I partook in a henna tattoo of La Santa Muerte
Saint Death on my back

sketched by a joven wandering
person to person selling sketching services

mano suave mano suave he sd
for a bet my friend made
“I'll pay for the tattoo & a

“bottle of tequila
“if you get it & let me take a

“picture
“so I can show yr mom”

had me at the mention of tequila mind
I enjoy yr photos

like fireflies
they make me happy

as when stars fell on Alabama

I am yr hmbl srvnt
                     
             Mexico City: 27 July 2009

​

Steven Alvarez is the author of three books of verse, and the winner of the 2016 Fence Modern Poets Prize. He is assistant professor of English at St. John's University. Follow him on Twitter @chastitellez and on Instagram @stevenpaulalvarez.