VALENZUELA IS ON TV

                   ​by Gabriel Rubi 

Some nights, abuelo does not cross, instead
with a beer in hand, he concaves his image

against the pixel screen imposed on his hero 
whose motions orchestrated from a mound

control my abuelo’s eyebrows and grins 
like a marionette’s wire. From within the static box, 

set to the target accuracy of the hero’s wrists,
the dancing strings lift or defeat his state.

Abuelo contorts his soul and wrinkles his brow 
to strain. The pitches we toss are many. A sting 

as cactus draw their thorns with a desert pane.
The suns rains shadows through the torn screen doors.

Abuelo’s beard blooms around his smile like cacti 
fruited from his predawn cold can of Coors.





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​Gabriel Rubi is a SoCal native. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. He lived and died in video games, but now he is a father and husband afraid to die. He is a poet, translator and non-fiction writer. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry International, Gulf Stream Magazine, and elsewhere. Gabriel Rubi is a 2017 Intro Journals Project Winner.

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