Where Masks are Not Allowed
I heard it
this memory from another time
It sounds like my mother
praying on the wrong frequency
to a God, who I'm not sure
is listening anymore.
Her hands Holding the empty
space between her palms
Her heart, hymn filled with faithful.
Her feet idolizing a different road
I heard it.
It sounds like Art Loboes voice
invoking music from another time
Sounds like oldies enticing mops to dance
fabuloso across the floor.
Like a backyard yard Barrio pachanga
mix tape in the cassette deck of my chest.
I heard it.
Like a cumbia nursery rhyme beat from down the street.
Ice cream trucks with crooked Mickey Mouses,
pushing paletas to a mob of hungry mocosos.
Young ones trying to chase the heat away
With sticky fingers
and their mamas washing quarters.
Mama saying
“That popsicle has two sticks in it.
Give half to your brother”
I heard it.
in broken places of my heart.
Where I hide those broken things.
Childhood scrapes
that sound like roaches living in my refrigerator,
crawling out cereal boxes,
and the drawers where we kept our chonis.
Memories of those little fuckers falling out my backpack at school
in front of all my friends
and the girl that made my stomach ache.
I heard it.
sounds like a homeless family taking footsteps in
different directions, trying to find a place to sleep.
Sounds like collect calls from prison.
promises that next time things will be different.
Disconnecting phone lines and static
coming from the eyes of a son who just wants his father back.
I heard it
Sounds like children sacrificed
for a block that wasn't theirs.
Like souls whispering from bullet holes.
and decisions that broke
the hearts of my brothers
because I couldn't watch them die,
like sacred ink stains.
Fading of the page.
Only to be remembered
in the ramblings of a drunken
cholo sage. becoming shadows
of rants only ever resurrected as prayers.
I heard it once.
Emanating from my inside voice.
From the deep place
where brilliance bellows my fire.
A song birthed from blossoming hands.
Where monsters dare not venture.
Where masks are not allowed.
Frank Escamilla aka The Bus Stop Prophet