I'll read you one more from Notebook.
"I, Citlali 'La Loca' Cienfuegos"--
"Sutra on the Ninth Sun."
"They, the category babies, know my name.
Call me Citlali, La Loca, in this wind.
Bring me a mango in thrombosis, the catch of the rice day,
the net bag full of ocean shovel and asphalt scribble.
The ninth sun is upon us here in these flat boards of rockroses,
barbed butterflies.
My city boils in the velvet shade.
My city sings for its return to my little womb house.
My gypsy song smuggled from Chiapa de Corzo,
from a rastro in Madrid.
The alley is my necklace.
The boulevard is my guitar.
Sing then, and howl again, tiny Ginsberg Lorca California
with your bubble cock, tiny Frida into hip hop bongo
curbs and howl again.
Here, next to me, to my breast.
Come close and shiver with daybreak starry winds.
Call upon me.
Recline your charcoal nipples, your rough hair,
and let us walk alone.
And together, stroll and break through the rivers,
the gizmo worldwide net of blue nothing.
Pronounce me free.
I am Citlali Cienfuegos.
I stand alone in a Socrates Tortilla Flats trial.
No, it is my trial I'm speaking of.
It is my sedition I'm referring to.
It is my hanging you are laughing at.
It is my brain you are swimming through.
It is my parade in liquor light, malt, hosiery,
and maquila corporate garters.
My face astounds you and lures you and mixes you
into another life, presses your countenance
and identity and modernity.
I said, come.
I said, let us gather, alone and separate.
Let us spin flaming and guard the pyres 10 feet high.
Let us make the now noise tambourine festival public.
Throw away the lamp skin, the skin lamp,
the bushes of shamed dimes.
Listen close.
Come up to my dress halfway down.
Feel my belly, hot and stormy, my face,
pucked and diamond-eyed, ready to please and swing
one more delirium in you."
Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler.
I actually was coming up from El Paso,
and I had gone to Food City in downtown.
And I saw a great sale of jalapeños--
$0.44 a pound.
And I filled up a whole suitcase of them.
[LAUGHTER]
Because I was going to California.
And I knew that, on the way, there was a checkpoint.
[LAUGHTER]
And I'm just so used to border stations and customs
and passport and paper questions that I automatically,
like a genetic reflex, locked up the suitcase of jalapeños
in the trunk.
Because I remember when I was a kid coming up
through Tijuana to San Diego--
and, well, all the time, really--
and my Uncle Fernando, who was called Flat Top by my other
Uncle, Roberto, who was called Panza Duele from my first uncle
because my Uncle Flat Top didn't have any hair,
and my Uncle Berto, Panza Duele-- rubber belly--
had gotten too many surgeries.
So my Uncle Flat Top called my other Uncle Berto Panza Duele.
And they had a great time with that.
And so I was with Uncle Flat Top,
who was bald, coming up from Tijuana,
who had bought some whiskey.
And it's called Madero whiskey.
Everybody say, Madero.
Madero.
That's some heavy crude whiskey.
He'd run out of gas, put it in there, no problem.
[LAUGHTER]
So he said, take this bottle, Juanito.
We're almost there.
Hurry.
Hurry up.
What?
What, tío?
Take this bottle right now.
You know how uncles are?
Well, in my family, it was like we
used to bow down and get on our knees
and kiss their hands when they walked into the house.
Remember that?
Beso de la mano.
Go kiss your uncle's hand That's the first thing we had to do.
Kiss your uncle's hand, Juanito.
Don't you dare walk through the living room like that.
Get back, and kiss his hand.
Kneel down.
What do you mean?
Just don't stand up and kiss a hand like that.
I told you many times.
You kneel down, put your hand out.
He'll give you his hand.
Bow your head, and kiss it.
But my primos are all here, all my cousins.
They're going to-- right now.
So my Uncle Flat Top asked me a favor.
I couldn't say no.
Oh, OK, tío.
I was, like, seven or eight years old.
Yeah, I'll put it in-- put it in your boots.
Put that whiskey in your boots.
So I used to hide whiskey in my boots.
And that was the fun part.
The tougher part was when I was living
in Escondido, in the mountains of Escondido,
in my father's famous trailer.
And I had great friends.
And we had just made friends.
And he was working for a family.
And he was helping them farm their little half
of a half of a half of an acre.
And he took care of that for them so that way,
we could live in the backyard.
And my father had dreams of buying
the half of the half of the half of the acre.
But it didn't work out.
So one day, a van came and took the whole family.
They were deported.
And I was five years old.
And that was part of that reflex of smuggling jalapeños from
Food City.
It has its really hilarious points, you know?
And it's reality.
Because they're all realities.