Grandpa/Bob Alvarado

The sewing machine buzzing.
Fabric laid out. Waiting to be
made into something useful
and beautiful.

Lightly faded blue jeans
fit snugly around his
waist, punctual.

Lively as the Chile Relleno
on his plate.

Like the long curved
metal needle meant
to keep the fabric in place,
Bob holds together the many
strands of family in his life

Like the smooth roads, Bob
values specificity. Exact details.

His round eyes are like records
of his youth, spinning,
Playing memories from his past.

Jogger's Love Story

His eyes fell onto the paper belonging to
The woman whose heart he desired so much
Has stopped beating long ago.

He could imagine
As her pen wrote
Dodging the puddles of tears
That fell on her paper like rain drops
In spring:

....If not for the burn in my lungs
While we ran, perhaps then I would have said it.
As if it were warning me, to hold my tongue,
Save my breath

for myself and my own strength...

….The ground is cold but I must lay in it
As the fall leaf does,
To give itself up to the soil.
I must do the same, a sacrifice
Already chosen for me

...It was never my plan.
To meet you

Through blurry eyes, as I jogged
Hard to escape the growth.
I never meant to see...

But there you were.
Your steps beside me, steadying
My heartbeat
As if to be strong for me
When my own strength
Fell, you paced yourself
To my weakening steps.

… As if your love was unconditional
It was you who was strong for me
When I could no longer be strong for myself
Even when your love was thought
unrequited, your hand still rested
in mine, still sending surges through
my hollow body.

And now our positions are switched
you are the weak one,
But from mourning.
So now it is time I gave you strength
For I saved my last bit for you.

Ode to Writer's Block

Ode to Writer's Block

The crumpled up lined paper shows it
it is in the many black lines, swirls, and x's over those
poor reject lines

The Love that is
My love for you

On the days when nothing rhymes
Nothing illiterates
Nothing. Moves. No one.

This love is the deadendbrickwallavdexwah
screams and my heart sinks frustrated feeling
because love isn't easy
certainly not our love

And on the days you come around, we play
tug of war with my poems, with this paper,
except the woven words slip through my grip
burning my hand in place of a rope
its the nonsense sentences that pull me over the line
As you beg of me to yell uncle

You Win,
Damn, I love you.

The blank space covering my paper
you missed a spot, everywhere!
Now that's the feeling that attaches me to you
And your __ (Blank)__visits
Of white out lines
eraser bits
the 15th attempt at that last stanza
you mock me when I ask is any of this good?
Of course not, because I love you