The straightest way
to get from this life to the next
is by climbing through
the sliced-open belly of sky
left behind by
the stoop of a falcon,
she explained.
Then she taught me
how little I knew
about my own language:
the prescription by which
adjectives are always stacked
old white bigot
and never
white old bigot;
the prescription by which
commas signal deviance
from the default word order
subject-verb-whatever.
Then after we had sex,
she told me
how little I knew about women,
and chicanas,
and her.
Before seeing me out,
she asked me
if her lessons had been worth it.
“If they gave you pleasure,”
I replied.
“But to you, jefe?”
“I’m going to store it all away
and call you up the second
I put any of it to good use.”
She laughed.
We both did.
What a silly one-night stand.
