Quien Es Tu Madre?

by Chris Kenneally
photo by Rich Rodichok

I was thirsty.

I needed to drown myself in experience.
I was driving like a speed freak
Pedro, Juan, Edwin were coked-up in the back seat
drums, slamming the seats like monkeys
Edwin preaching like a Spanish Baptist
the stench of restaurant workers, body odor, cologne, beer.
Pedro sixteen years old with the liver of a dead man.
Cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke, we are fish in a bowl
Travelling around the speed of sound
all we hear is salsa, all I taste is Tisha
Tisha sat in the front, her fingers screaming all over me
I’ve always done well with black chicks
I can never tell what the fuck Edwin is saying,
he is a maniac, a former pro boxer
in the back of his afro a star is shaved
Once I asked him, ‘what’s the star for?’
He laughed and threw a bottle at me,
I caught it. No big deal he’s always throwing dishes and shit.
Juan tells me he hates Puerto Ricans and I laugh.
His hair gets grayer every day, his eyes more wrinkled,
his stomach flatter, his habit harder.
Edwin, man, he must be forty; he looks about twenty
He explained that he accidentally ate human flesh in Viet Nam, says he hasn’t aged since;
and Pedro he’s not even a Puerto, just a Perico sniffer.
Tisha doesn’t touch the stuff. She smokes ganja like a rasta.
Once I did her on a pool table.
Anyway, I’m thirsty as hell, so I say: I’m thirsty as hell.
Juan says: Here maracon.
Edwin hands me the forty ounce of beer and says something in Spanish.
Shows us his bullet scar and knife wound.
I think he’s been in and out of prison his whole life.
I guess Juan is always helping him out and stuff.
And now, looking back, and now looking here;
the bottle remains, clear, transparent;
the label is peeled. Now it’s filled with water.
I’m fulfilled with health. Tisha’s filled with a baby.
Juan is empty. Pedro and Edwin are probably high somewhere.