The Mexican Fireworks Story!

Okay, so this has nothing to do with a story about mexican fireworks, rather I didn't want to title this entry as "Some Random Poems", so I took the main bits from each of the three and combined them. Here's the poems:


The Mexican in America
I met him across the counter at Taco Bell,
me, ordering three hard taco supremes
he, working hard at three low-end jobs.

His accent asked me if I wanted a drink with that,
and I said yes, and that I spoke Spanish.

Every week we spoke across that counter,
about his lack of sleep and my language studies,
his bus ride to work, and my father’s car
and he became more than a poor immigrant,
hidden behind tanned skin and a black moustache:
a familiar face, and then a friend.

Then he lost one job
Then another gave him time-off
so I went skating with him one Saturday night.

Everybody needs a friend,
and though he lived with a tribe of countrymen,
they left him alone when they tossed back the beer,
so he called on me to come down.

The rink was small, filled mainly with children and teenagers,
plus one old guy who’d been skating since age ten.
I was like child: slow, wobbling, unsure

if I could safely turn around or stop without falling.

While my friend jumped empty chairs followed by pirouettes,
one of the best, the fastest, a man with talent.

Too bad the rink was small, containing him
from spinning out into the abandoned streets,
The centripetal force of the walls crushing his hopes
to become famous, well-known, an individual.
The gravity kept him orbiting in empty circles,
magnificent circles, though they were.

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This poem is taken from my feeling about an experience with a Mexican friend of mine who works at Taco Bell and loves roller skating. Surprise, huh? I think the poem otherwise speaks for itself - who am I to be where I am in life, and who is he to be where he is?

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Fireworks, revisited
Like burnt leaves fell,
like an amber willow tree
dipped her hands into that black sky
above us, the fireworks left their mark.

I pulled out of the darkness my watch
and noticed the infant cry awake,
the police look down,
and the girls talk behind her.

It they who spoke and not her,
silent when I turned to listen.
Instead she looked at the colors change
the green, yellow, and red,

that I remembered when the trees hid the moon
on our way home; she said it flickered
like the fireworks white finale:
autumn dying into winter.

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The title for this one isn't really set, but because the situation pairs up so much with my other Fireworks poem, I've considered combining them into a two part poem. Then again, i might not because truly the feeling of the two poems (not to mention the content and the people involved) are very different. Who knows, but I still like it.

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Unfinished Stories
If I could tell you from my unfinished stories,
the endings, the happiness, the characters plenty,
you might ask the question that I asked before,
– “How many?”

How many leaves can you count in my hair?
How many flowers behind my back?
How many times will I be unaware
that I left you with white, while my ink is black?

If you could tell me from your broken clocks,
ripped-up calendars, and hidden sky, then
I might ask as we walk round the block,
– “When?”

When will you say that a story’s done?
When will we get out from under the rain?
When will we agree that the endings are one
when two people start over again?

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Basically the first part of this poem basically popped into my head and I thought it sounded interested, so I went from there. I enjoy most of it, though I feel it could still use some work. Heck, they all could. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy these!