BIO
Fernando Pérez is Mexican-American poet from Los Angeles, CA. He attended Long Beach City College and received his BA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach, before moving to Phoenix, AZ, where he received an MFA in Poetry from Arizona State University. Fernando is currently an assistant professor of writing at Bellevue College in Washington State. His work has appeared in several journals, including The Suburban Review, Hinchas de Poesía, Crab Orchard Review, and the Volta. His first collection of poems is forthcoming from The University of New Mexico Press in the fall of 2017.
The American Dead
All we need to know about
the body:
soft tissue goes first,
of course.
Bones degrade based on
density.
Femurs break down easily
because of marrow.
The scapula, the pelvis,
take longer.
Before Black men die here
someone will record them
from safe distance.
Sometimes we climb onto a
large pile
of several decomposing
carcasses
to measure temperature.
We replicate a crime
scene.
The growing list of
suspicious deaths.
When a Black man dies
here,
people put his body on
ice.
He grows up on a dead-end
dirt road.
His family raises animals
for slaughter.
Freezing broccoli and
beans
to last through winter.
His neighbors share their
syrup
when the weather gets
cold.
Black body
onto board
into casket or furnace.
Body-talk is not uncommon
at dinner.
Do not translate simple
into nothing.
Time the interval
instead.
The crosswalk of too soon
and tomorrow.
When Black men die here
the police will
make a phone call
in front of their corpse.
People in uniforms take
Black bodies away.
Say they don’t know why
they fear you.
Black bodies above and
below.
Accompany the departed.
No body
decomposes on its own.
Death
is collective:
Your neighbor gets your
person.
You get some
of your person’s
neighbor.
Shameless Barrio Opera
Deaf to the curses he
falls onto her skin.
All the freckles, tiny
drum heads
casting verbal rain
drops.
Answer: when a father is
Mexican
and a mother is hurtful.
If they were older,
orange clouds,
dust withered clouds
or clouds withered down
to dust
desert-satiated,
would restore their hands
to photographs,
first iterations
expressed using loops.
The sweaty reality of slides
one at a time by a
carousel projector.
When they were young
parents in the 80’s
too often rescued by door
locks and lullabies.
When god was new and
brown.
They stayed fixed to the
moon’s bright smile
like it was a standing
cure.
A penny slid across hardwood.
If he doubted water, she
would
think of the stationary
existence of drowning.
Say the future is a clear
stream.
Say the past is on time—
Numbers they might count.
Something to play catch
with:
A pinecone. A crumbled
dollar.
Question: What does hurt
have
to do with California?