Two Poems by Ray Gonzalez

EL ARROTO
El arroto - a river spirit dwelling where many people have drowned

El arroto arrives in the white flame, 
touches your forehead with doubt, 
hides its true form when you love
what doesn’t belong to you, 
el arroto weaving out of the way 
as its music is misread, 
its cool fiber entwined around 
your idea there is one savior, 
but he is too busy picking moth
wings out of pieces of bread, 
el arroto riding from your blankets
to steal your dark bottles of glass, 

play them as the instrument left
behind by someone who wanted
you to care, el arroto moving 
to its own wind, its geometric
wisdom bringing you back 
as you lift your arms and trace
a blood vein across your neck, 
el arroto waiting for you to cross
to the other side of the river
where no one has waited in years, 
but someone is finally there, 
waving arms warning you about
a closeness you don’t understand.   


PHASE


I know the fog when the men who
play with it come back to strike.

By a hidden fire, a single
noun at the end of the reason.

I sense the word when the face
of another catches me as I fall,

my angry ones passing into memory
with little guitars playing in their skins.

I respect the glass beetle and am faithful
to the idea of rice milk.

When I taste it on a piece of paper, 
I lie down to sleep with each word. 

Deposing of street lamps. I leave two towns
without having been gone.

Through the arched shadows, the sparrows
command against the wind.

I whisper their first notes, subtract them 
from the cut healing on my palm.

In a mercado stall, the slicing of the pig’s 
head where a pretty woman smiles.

Finding my history books and worn shoes, 
I close my imagination with two lumps of coal,

slip beside the trapped beggar in the stall, 
wonder about the blood apples in his skin

as the mercado catches the fire and 
the pig’s head hisses with smoke.

Ray Gonzalez