I've been meaning to tell you how the sky is pink here sometimes like the roof of a mouth that's about to chomp down on the crooked steel teeth of the city,

I remember the desperate things we did and that I stumble down sidewalks listening to the buzz of street lamps at dusk and the crush of leaves on the pavement,

Without you here I'm viciously lonely

and I can't remember the last time I felt holy, the last time I offered myself as sanctuary

*

I watched two men press hard into each other, their bodies caught in the club’s bass drum swell, and I couldn’t remember when I knew I’d never be beautiful, but it must have been quick and subtle, the way the holy ghost can pass in and out of a room. I want so desperately to be finished with desire, the rushing wind, the still small voice.

I thank the Virgin of Guadalupe because I’ve managed to get into the US without being seen by the immigration police. I ask to find a good job to send money to my family.