Court Castaños
Two Poems
Honey Gold
—for Max, in transition, and to boyhood hard-won.
Hey kid, I found you
out there on the school yard, smoldering,
in your baseball cap, two sizes too big, and those pink jeans
your parents wrestled you into. Kids circling like buzzards,
like shards, under the migraine heat, the tired grimace
of late summer sun. You, silent, grinding your milk teeth
sharp. Six years old and your eyes already knew
how to knock questions out from people’s mouths
before they had a chance to suck the juice from the bone.
There is a quiet that happens inside
the drum of rainstorms, that I imagine you heard
that day you cut the long strands
of hair from your little boy head. You emerged from the secret
fort, bits of clipped hair stuck to the sweat of your bare chest, shining
the way dandelion seeds flicker in the golden hour
after they’ve been blown free with a wish. Remember: you
roar the sweat off the sun. You,
wax clabber the new moon. You,
honey gold.
American
—for my great grandparents for crossing the border as children, and for my grandma, Theresa Castaños, who spit hell at anyone who had anything to say about it.
Born of Mexican blood into a white skin,
I couldn’t understand why we all
propped old Glory like a talisman
outside our homes. James Brown, Cracker Jacks,
Monopoly. Sucking sugar from
ice cold, sweating bottles of
Coca Cola, We are American!
Grandma would rocket red glare,
a bomb exploding anytime anyone
asked us, What are you?
Grandpa was a Marine and
in the weeks before he died
he’d smile while describing
how it was going to go down:
a bugler playing loud and slow,
us grieving in our Sunday best as
Marines marched to his casket.
Standing straight they’d salute him,
hand over the flag to us.
My Grandparents rest now under big skies,
almond orchards blooming, fruiting,
laying bare as the years build
since we last said, Goodbye.
In my life I have wondered,
do Americans make enough tamales
at Christmas time to feed all
of their friends and family? Do Americans
have cousins named Paco and Raul and
do Americans douse their tri-tip and chicken in salt
and lemon, roast it until they salivate
at the sizzling, charred skin?
Can Americans suddenly burst
into frantic fits of Spanish
when they are tired of holding everything
inside, so tightly choked in stars and stripes?
But, as I always have, I know,
Yes. Sí. See,
of course we do.
—Submitted on 04/28/2020
Court Castaños‘s poems have appeared in The Nasiona, San Joaquin Review Online, and Boudin. Castaños grew up adventuring along the Kings River in the San Joaquin Valley and now resides in Santa Cruz, Calif.
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