Cool Woman Albuquerque
Cool Woman Albuquerque is a city
of many words
heaps of rags and scarves and
hands that smell of oil
she is a bag lady.
she is a homeless city
her shoulders are made of
watermelon rock and smooth silt
thin veins once a roaring river
now muddied and pungent with
stick
and debris
her pockets are heavy with
laundry mats and neon light
her pockets are heavy with
beggars and banks and midnight
pubs
hookah lounges
tattoo parlors
prostitutes prowl her sidewalks
and boys call her dirty names
she has a certain gratitude for
misplaced shopping carts and
musicians
she has a certain gratitude for
sloppy graffiti and cholo-hobo
effigies
Her hot mouth houses roasting
chile
roja, the flame of a summer
Bosque
wild, roaring and in love with
abandonment
stray dogs limp along her
one-way streets
she is flea bitten and tangled
all the way from Nob Hill to
Downtown Friday night
she welcomes transplants and
refugees and the rich balloonist
her hands are callused and reach
feeble for spare change
squatting in the park
she takes a piss
lovers kiss
in her dark alleys and
the secret parts of her parks
the secret homes of the homeless
She is a water color dawn
a jackpot mad jangle of Indian
Casino
she a dreadlocked hippie and a
crystal meth-junkie
a mall rat, a college professor
a dusty book store prowler
a second-hand Goodwill shopping
spree
Cool Woman Albuquerque spreads
her legs
dips her turquoise topped toes
into
the four corners of the sacred
wind
and smiles for the photographer
she hangs lewd and naked in
Santa Fe museums
highway billboards
the glossy pages of a turista
magazine
her ass is branded with a stolen
Zia
streaked in gold and waving
like a dumb child from a flag
pole
Ristra braided hair
neck of honey
ankles thick like masa
She speaks in tongues
Dine
Spanglish
slang and catcalls
broken English and
open mic-night poetry
that makes no sense
her underbelly of avenues
house abortion clinics
hidden Buddhist temples and pool
halls
free lunch lines in Central Park
upon her breast wild flocks of
pigeons roam
like college kids drunk on
freedom
her thoughts are peppered with
clouds of cotton
her bones ancient as dust
her lungs engraved in streams of
silver
She daydreams
of parades and quinceaneras
her ears ring
of cathedrals gone mad
the clanging belfry of morning
mass
the clamor of feast day upon a
sunny dusty reservation
Her shawl is stitched in stories
her tattered slippers patched in
words.
her tousled hair tangled in
early morning traffic jams
She is the history of today
a filthy mosaic of gutters and a
flooded out Barrelas.
the front page of the defunct
Tribune
Cool Woman Albuquerque is a bag
lady with a broken back
a smile like the missing teeth
of an old picket fence
She is a cherry red ranfla
cruising Route 66!
Beautiful! Glorious!
Orale!
A city riddled in the jagged
splendor of mountain chain
upon mountain chain
upon the pink salmon hue of a
golden
radiant
mountain chain.
Cool Woman Albuquerque
is a man
of many words.
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