routine disorder

winter whispers over the desert golden grass

drifting on a december wind and a cup

of cocoa in my hands black coffee on your side

shoes skimming goat-head thorns rearing up

one-two this too shall pass

red sweatshirt bought with money you don’t have

luminary at the side of the road an abuela stands alone

selling biscuits made of lard and stuffed corn husks

wise-woman merchant watching a child limp home

cinderblock feet too heavy to carry

step around the sidewalk cracks compulsions

drawn out by a late warm winter frosty fear

and shards of liquor-bottle glass green like the plates

at the payday sushi place spoiled fish and cheap beer

silent self-made rituals hide my revulsion

counting copper pennies as you roll them chapped

violent fingers show tenderness in the way they

cup over mine show me how math makes meaning

out of madness divide by zero with nothing to carry

nothing but the blood dissolving in my mouth

dust and a sweat-stained couch pillow over my head

pleading mercy between commercial breaks broken

fingers tap the rhythm of your burdened breath: one-

two one-two-one-two-one and a hitch like a heart

skipping a beat i am back at the beginning

sycamore and piñon scattered needles and leaves

dot the otherwise barren campus and it’s just us

walking down engineer’s way we don’t

have a car and the bus line stopped running it’s us

until the dark seeps in and it’s back to me

hidden behind a wall of bamboo trees a cross

the spire of a church caught in electrical lines and i

never learned how to pray but i’m down on my knees

in the kitchen of your apartment reciting good-nights

learning how repetition makes sense of chaos