Cover and
Copyright Page

Marisol,
Iguana Woman

Man of Steel

Todos Colgados

Fridays
at Western Union

Grave Revelation

Celulistas

Cubreviento

Preludio
a Nezahualcoyotl

Sometimes
They Can Read Lips

Already She Knows

Sometimes They Can Read Lips

She wants the chance.
Those conjurers on street corners just wait 
	for her car to pause.
In the time between yellow and red 
	they catch her burning lips.
Despite the fires spilling from between her teeth,
they can separate the singed words, pull
needle and thread from between their fingers,
sew conversation together.

She wishes now she didn't have this anger, so present,
she can see the crumbled face of a small girl next to her.

She gives a half stare toward the curb. She is sure
they connect her glowing words with the angle
of her brow, her incensed eye.

She could open the door, push the child out
but that would leave her open, the outside just  waiting 
for a seat.
And they are watching:
Bicycle delivery guys, women in suit dresses and tennies,
teenagers congregating on bus stop benches-
		all trying to connect her with the toddler
in an effort to couple the two, teach living together.

		They can't help it. They see the need on her face, 
a frown so strong

She thinks it can't be done-
she and this incorrigible child
living together under sheets of skin.

But something in her has started to turn,
like a baby in its water bubble,
and she stops her car, opens the window.

There is a guide for these things
			so that we are not alone
who will push someone, create an impulse within
that forces you to look out, past your arm,
and toward fingertip's end
			to her-
the matches under your fingernails
igniting the coal in her eye.


                               —by JoAnne Reyes-Boitel