Steven Alvarez
Tucson / a figure on a gravel lawn w/ a leaf blower
& in my house again wuz hunger wuz thirst
weave until sunlight opens
standing in white feet shivering
pencil & colored pencil on pieces of paper too many little smokies
hello colonoscopy!
congratulations on becoming a doctor!
old paint
my house
is my horse
I am never not surprised by yr gentleness
I just missed the most watched
television program ever among morning leaves
puddles the sun bees hovered
abt the sugar skulls dirty & sweet on the rusty
candelabras candied violet
in the skull’s last hat I really want to stick it
to a small town lawyer little
lettuce a bunch of poison arrows
but I watched
how a mist cd coax it open
I exited the arena in my underwear waving a chair
do they make hand pajamas
I wuz lying in the bathtub infected but I still
remember it as a very good time
I love to brandish my conflicted lips
dry goods some just raid I
wear my karma so it shows
Steven Alvarez is the author of The Codex Mojaodicus, winner of the 2016 Fence Modern Poets Prize. He has also authored the novels in verse The Pocho Codex (2011) and The Xicano Genome (2013), both published by Editorial Paroxismo, and the chapbooks, Tonalamatl, El Segundo's Dream Notes (2017, Letter [r] Press), Un/documented, Kentucky (2016, winner of the Rusty Toque Chapbook Prize), and Six Poems from the Codex Mojaodicus (2014, winner of the Seven Kitchens Press Rane Arroyo Poetry Prize). His work has appeared in the Best Experimental Writing (BAX), Asymptote, Berkeley Poetry Review, Fence, Huizache, The Offing, and Waxwing. Follow Steven on Instagram @stevenpaulalvarez and Twitter @chastitellez.