(Metropolitan Cathedral)
(a pair of lines) won’t suffice for its majestic precipitation (into matter)       “I’m her biggest
mistake and her clearest word”       (high-budget) mercy exhibits its boundless (forbidden)
retablos       its ceiling (threatening with organs)      “dew on her petals and the overseer of
thorns”      (miserable) those who carry their sorrows to the mahogany womb       “¿perhaps she
imagined herself a demiurge when she imagined me?”         glorious you (who crowned yourself
queen with alms)      “(María) make tender the flaming rose”        she understands piety (but rarely
uses it)      “if you’re going to cry don’t make a sound”     its warning echo doesn’t leave me
(alone) with her reproaches          (she must remember) there are knives under the water


chapel of the Immaculate Conception (Salto de Agua)
         (limbo) I want to go down this hospital hallway (to sleep in your numb dream)      columns
(go weak at the ankles)     “from the verbum” (redemption of marble)        right up against the
drainage pipes        the grail holds the host       catfish (triplets) water womb
                         (silence) from you and for you (silence)


(a Christ cries iron tears in Santiago Tlatelolco)
naked (in his grandeur) the wall of lava      “my knees ache” (rest them on the Son’s shoulders)
      solitude (watch the gate) “take me from this earth”     today I don’t want to know (about my
humanity)      (a window of sun) drips onto the wall     ¿couldn’t you say “take my wound” I don’t
want it (you keep it)?       his nave confuses words (murmurs)    consider that I came to throw up
some conspicuous vomit near his plants       the cupola lets loose the vowels    ¿for whom are the
women singing? (the emperor of suffering is far far away)     “I don’t want to go back through the
vestibule” (¿is that so wrong?)     ¿to whom am I speaking?     my superior brother has been
sentenced to death            (my brother) who can’t fly away (nailed down as he is)
          “¿is there anything easier than dying?”


San Miguel ascends with the demon (the temple of San Miguel Archangel)
his (glass) scales his (unhinged siren) voice      “¿to whom shall I turn?” (San Miguel) archangel
       “protect me” from the nineteenth-century dragon (demon) monster        San Miguel (smugly)
finishes his cigarette (orders another double shot)       I shut my eyes (plummeting) I ride
(between descending eagle’s scapulae)            ¿who will defend me? wings are vestiges of scales
(you were a reptile)         (San Miguel) asks for an interview with hell’s pimp         (the devil)
blinds me (he’s too damn bright to see)         San Miguel (forgot his sparkling sword) propped
against the back of a chair        ¿where’s the demon?        “we’ve descended to a barren hell”
        San Miguel (follows me) without paying the check       (San) Miguel        on the way back (I
thank him)         (I suspect) he made me go down to free his brother


(fever for Santo Domingo)
(he fell) and blood is flaking from his knees (his elbow is patched with packing tape) clouded
tinsel       (grapes) bows of heirloom ivy “downfalls into veritable dust”       (blood-drenched)
from heels to neck     (sacred rust-red tezontle) immaculate slave of the quarries         (whose
jurisdiction is it) ¿life’s or death’s?      (I carry the fever with me) its name is legion     saw-blade
in the ureters       lumbar gravestone         (mishmash of nausea) the fever’s trigger      rattleboned
dog behind my knees           I don’t know what to do about it       ¿couldn’t I just say a prayer?
    (¿is dying this complicated?)


(temple of Jesús María)
clenched fist (church)       (withered) shriveled (fractured) splintered “how beautiful you are”    
perfection is a cheap emblem         (only in your hand) do the seeds of pus flower
       tortured in its cupola (lead and rock) church (not abandoned)      newfound mineral (“the
door to heaven”) a goldmine excavated in piety       (señora) you don’t purge yourself of any
sentence     (on the walls) time (goldsmith) humidity (a filigree deposit)      light (through the
stained glass windows) cuts zirconium facets (polishes) emeralds and rutilant rubies “there’s no
sorrow like my sorrow”        clenched fist (church) soothe my eyes      don’t succumb to plaster
and its false salvation     (far) far away     a tanker-truck echoes like the trumpet of a distant
civilization


(baptism at San Fernando)
in the alcoves “and under the words”     costume jewelry       (since you don’t have a name) I
baptize you      Adela “take away the rain and bring out the sun” Alicia (¡open the door!) Berenice
(¿will you give me a drink?) Citlali (white like the night) Ciudad (lottery) Consuelo (don’t abandon
me) Dolores (early-morning fog) Eunice (you’ll conquer the clouds) Eva (show me the way)
Genoveva (¿will you come back?) Hortensia (flutter over the gardens) (Janet) your name’s not
pronounced Lucía (turn on your lamps) María (your blood is my duty) Magdalena (prayer is salt)
Meztli (reverberate)