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Jesus, the Mexican boy
walks with strappy feet in grimy clothes
smiling as I wave from my bicycle. Afternoons,
Jesus knocks by kicking his ball into my front door
until I show up holding a garlic press
and look down, understanding he brought the sound of friendship.
He coolly flicks his ball from the ground to my chest
where I catch it, kick it easy across Clay Street
into the park where we never keep score.
We play soccer, talk.
I’m almost seven, he says out of breath, passing
the ball between his legs, spinning crazy
dustdevil in the droughty field. What’s you’re being for Halloween?
I say an elephant and he laughs fast like a machine
gun, using his hand to wipe his nose.
I’m Spiderman. So I ask him how it feels
to climb tall buildings using his spider-web shooter.
He stares at the chain-link fence and blows quick
hisses from the hole left by a missing tooth, and he responds
plainly, like children do, with a question of his own:
Do you know my mom’s dead?
I pass back to him.
Jesus bends down at the waist, pushes his ball
deep into a field without language.
Return to Volume 1.5
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