Two Poems by Roberto Montes
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Roberto Montes.
The Estate Taxed
I should have taken the amaranth soap
From the rich prick’s bathroom
Should have mothered the fault
Line in my skull Fit to burst
The blood brain barrier
Bean counter beans that jump
As if thrilled by the prospect
Of an open palm
The lives we bury
When the season turns
Make themselves known
The feeling is mutual
In the street of the poem
O’Hara saw my Puerto Rican chest
But all I could make out was his head
Nursing a darling
I would one day be asked to kill
In this manner
Our means pass on
The first language
Was a want
For language
Hunger
Is the native tongue
This World is Not Yours to Ignore
Abuela died of dehydration
Abuelo, complications of the heart
There is no evolutionary pressure
To live forever
I have been told
After sex
One mantis
Chews the head off the other
But this has never been observed
In the wild
Where I’m from
We have little use
For poetry
The old man on the train
Said after asking
What I do for a living and
I told him I worked stock
After a pause
He no longer wanted
To talk
It is some comfort
That a relationship could
Grow so quickly
Intimate
Sharing our silence
Each one
Particular to the person
Who holds it
A stray note or glance
That can be picked up
From across the room
An itch in the brain
That signals a
Failure to thrive
A phrase
I have always found
Disingenuous
As if to have a chance
A pea plant
Must enjoy life
Though the benefits of singing
To your garden
Have proven
Hard to discount
A sympathetic voice
The fragile likelihood
Of an afternoon
A root
So exposed
The thought of it stumbles
It was seven days
Before she died
The only thing
They couldn’t turn off
Rock salt
In a bed of flowers
The song grew dryer
As the tongue
Boiled in the throat
It is sick to remember
It is cruel to forget
Our body
On the white stone
Our body
Until it’s not our body anymore
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