Palm Springs, an envious devil
scratching my skin with sand scum and cactus soap –
still I love desert kin and a 97° shade of palm,
the way two lovers sing broken off psalms
with the crests of mouths reminiscent in palate of
blackberry dessert in a grandmother’s kitchen

How deep did you center yourself into the recesses of the fire?
lleno de tripas          muriendo de amor

eat, and make love like your body holds seven sets of souls
and one memory the heat     the cross

she starves money and browns in the sun,

a pattern of green, an echo of flaked orange on the lips,
architecture of stolen rosary embroidered on the belly button
where the south is receding and impregnated by the devil –
tattooed in nightlife neon from around the corner
and a temperament disfigured by the sour diesel,
Five thousand cancers are alive in your lashes,
ella se muere de hambre y se pone al sol.