Here's one.
I stopped my car on Gibson Avenue
alongside the T-Bird lounge and asked
two policemen club in a drunk stop please.
I was booked for obstruction of justice.
In the back seat with the drunk is grimy polyester coat padded
with wads of one tads smelling a dog's spittle and trash bins.
His eyelids cracked open from their concrete numbness.
And his trembling hand reached for an invisible Styrofoam
cup of cold, black coffee on the floor mat.
He gummed, thirsty lips for a small postponement, just a sip
he dreamed as we pass liquor stores.
I wondered if his self-imposed execution.
Behind bars, I stand peering down
into tears, porters mill leaning on mops and brooms.
Chicano in another cell wore sunglasses
like ancestors war paint.
Christ crucified across chest, dragging on left arm twirls
through a trellis haze of vines and roses.
Believer of blood duels, faith Earth will crack someday
and Aztec warriors rise to judge the heartless.
He whistles through branches of bars,
hand signing to a friend for that brown powder to fertilize.
Rose vines of his veins to make the roses bloom in winter.
Tier guard stands in front of my cell.
American flag pats to shoulder a big V- brank.
Walkie talkie dangling from wide black leather belt, brass
buttons and silver badge painstakingly polished
to impress authority.
Charge has been dropped Barker, come on out of there.
I follow the guard to the end of the tier to a button paneled
cage where a guard sprawls like a fat hoof reading a comic.
From a dark cell and dungeon as if from the hull of a slave
ship, I emerge into the blinding noon sun
that hacksaws 10 sheets of air.
But an unblinking anger fills me.
I stare at strange pedestrians returning from lunch
and a cut cheeked anger burns my face.
Anger of scorched sands, anger that
mumbles world's end over my bones,
angered that arbitrary justice feeds
on the healthiest Chicanos Chicanas.
I spend the rest of the afternoon walking
familiar streets downtown.
I withdraw and walk in a place inside myself,
trudging across fierce red sands of my heart
and through the arroyos sliding down,
turning over small rocks patiently
searching for something to describe me.
I am here brown body, blood, bones.
Living at Black Mesa outside of Bourke Elgato.
To them I'm found tagged with a number,
photographed cataloged fearless Chicano prone to violence.
Mau Mau warrior I once snickered and aside, outlawed
in their eyes to swing their picks
to be jailed in their jails.
I am here, scared, loving, helpful, brave,
graying hair, meditative brown eyes, kind smile,
eyes burning for equality.
I am here.