First Line From Merton’s “Asian Journal” for Fiction Writer James Foley (No Homo)

by Yago Cura

I have not yet seen the cathedral, which is probably confusing rather
than evident.
The university rector with the husky eyes I saw in the corridor between
Times Square and
Port Authority. Who I had really wanted to see was that professor that
told us to embrace
our hate like a lice-covered baby. Part of this is I know how much
Merton stewarded you
through that morality spell you passed halfway through the writer
factory.

The other part is infidel gadzookery, serial bus cosmicosmics, and
knee-jerk ribbing
pustule consulate, a sort of foreign service officer of the heart. Did we
or did we not go to
that professors quaint ashram and drape mary one all over the
lingams? And who the fuck
was I to get my alien husbandry degree from a coffer of empanadas?

Let me tell you who you were. You were taut laundry, a hanky with
gumption
on the prowl for the perennials were exploding their bottom switches.
It was there to be liked: the wattage of bar music in yellow light, the fly
trap ply…
I spent all my quarters in cranky pool tables; you we had to entice from
the rafters.

***

Yago’s poems have appeared in Lungfull!, LIT, Exquisite Corpse, Skanky Possum, New Orlean’s Review, Borderlands, U.S. Latino Review, and COMBO; he has poems coming out in 2nd Avenue andLungfull! (18) and his reviews can be found in The Poetry Project Newsletter. Yago also co-edits Hinchas de Poesia (www.hinchasdepoesia.com) with J. David Gonzalez, and maintains the Spanglish blog, http://spicaresque.blogspot.com.