Alexander Perez

Arriving Only to Get Lost

Soy una chava de dieciocho años
que ha soportado ser invisible toda su vida.
—Paola[1]

slept in the doorway Paola
dreaming of Copán Slinking dogs sniffed past

—guardedSecurity —morningcity ruins
dreams Glass towers replace pyramids

outside Starbucks Paola asks ¿señor por favor a dollar?
Businessmen —likeflamingo under screens pink heads bury

—scentedcoffee grinding Honduran memory  
beans brought peace Prior to machete death squads

left Paola’s husband's head black in a basket 
To John she prayed the Saint Baptist mass

mudslide crucifix TV wheelchair sandal
¿mi hijo? ¿mi hijo? ¿mi hijo? Searching

the coffee plantation fields Paola crossed at
the border the gun Machine mows down

To quench she opened her thirst up her mouth 
to the sky Snowflakes vanished like one-by-one miracles 

the café in —glassplate she her distorted reflection dissolved 
Into

El prisionero

Yesterday—picked up Ernesto outside the prison, that rotten-hearted keep.
With freedom on his feet, feel of new dancing shoes, tap, tap, tap,
I thought he would kick high up in the air when he saw me leaning against

His old friend his black Camaro. Instead, he came to a stop, breaking–
Down, confining his solitary face, not wanting, I guess, for me 
To see how bad a wreck he was, an unmanly oddity here among the stone–

Faced walls, the erect watchtowers, the blood-minded carceral machinery.
As I reached out my hand to him, he drew back, feral, instinctive, 
His eyes rolling up in panic, a wildebeest trapped by a kill-blind lion. 

My brother from himself estranged, amnesiac, electric-shocked. At that moment,
He recognized he was not someone he knew. Who was this looking back at him 
In a beclouded mirror? Clueless as to what he was or who he might be. In retrograde

Motion, tempted, he glanced behind to the Mount of Sodom, drawn to his  
Familiar wicked hosts. That’s when I said to no one in particular, especially not 
To my senile, stone-deaf God: What have you done to our impenitent thief?

I called out to Ernesto, to his sacred heart, reached across,
Tried to break him free from his delusions; he turned to me, his defenseless,
Depthless eyes like hammered rock, took my hand reservedly, still a solid space

Between us. I said, “¡Cabrón hace cuento tiempo no te veía!” trying to bring
The Taino zombi back to life. He smiled, a sleepy, devilish child’s smile, then
Spoke these first unfettered words: “Take my hand in your hands. Touch painfully 

Holy. Those dandelions there in that wild city-field beam amarillo brillante
As the way your gold cross haloed shines. Around us auras abound. I sense it,
I have a new name, a new name unsounded. What is it? Some vital reggaetón beat.”

[1] “I am an eighteen-year-old girl./This girl has put up with being invisible all her life.” From Counting Time Like People Count Stars: Poems by the Girls of Our Little Roses, Sand Pedro Sula, Honduras. Spencer Reece, ed. Tía Chucha Press: 2017.

Alexander Perez began writing and publishing poetry in 2022 at age forty-eight. Some of his poems first appeared in journals such as Sixfold, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Blue Unicorn. Alexander is an Albany native and currently lives in Schenectady, New York. He attended the University at Buffalo, University at Albany, and Duke University, and has degrees in English and philosophy. He works in public service for the University at Albany. Visit his website for more: perezpoetrystudio.com.