Dusk & Dust. Esteban Rodríguez

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Dusk & Dust - Esteban Rodríguez


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      DUSK & DUST

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      Copyright © 2019

      Esteban Rodríguez

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

      Editor: Patrick Whitfill

      Cover and book design: Kate McMullen

      Cover image: Cindy Watson, www.flickr.com/photos/cindylouboo

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Rodríguez, Esteban, 1989- author.

      Title: Dusk & dust / Esteban Rodriguez.

      Other titles: Dusk and dust

      Description: Spartanburg, SC : Hub City Press, 2019.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018060282 | ISBN 9781938235559

      Classification: LCC PS3618.O35823 A6 2019

      DDC 811/.6—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060282

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      Hub City Press gratefully acknowledges support from the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

      HUB CITY PRESS

      186 W. Main Street

      Spartanburg, SC 29306

      864.577.9349 | www.hubcity.org

       for María Elena

      CONTENTS

       Piñata

       Salt

       White Gold

       Ventriloquist

       Lips

       Mosquitoes

       Toothless

       Meat

       Heifer

       Trash

       INTERMISSION

       Seasonal

       Fowl

       Clothesline

       Lemonade

       Locks

       Ax

       Cats

       Skin

       Exodus

       Tamales

       Last Call

       La pulga

       Goats

       Buzzards

       Roadside

       Tumbleweeds

       Encore

       ACKNOLWEDGEMENTS

       CHRISTMAS

      I used to imagine snow quilted over rows of colonia rooftops, a blanket of white disguising poverty, erasing the patchy asphalt shingles shriveled like the skin of a spoiled tomato. I imagined my house wasn’t stitched together with Home Depot wood, slabs of gray brick stacked and restacked to form another wall, a future bedroom for my baby sister, a frame that never obeyed my father’s invented geometry. He was always building something, the same car engine, a crooked driveway he’d never finish, yearly promises for a better home, new neighbors, flower-patterned wallpaper, central heating so we wouldn’t keep the stove top on when the weather got cold, those unfair winds seeping through towels nailed like crosses around our windows. Winters never dropped below 50 in the Valley, yet there we were: Father, Mother, Son hiding from the temperature beneath layers of sheets and pillows, flea market coats and sweaters, restless limbs pressed and bound to each other’s warmth, hostage to a torn linoleum floor. I imagined waking up on Christmas morning, the Rockefeller tree in the center of our living room, neon lights softly strung, the scent of suburbia and pine needles perfuming my nostrils, eyes spellbound by the ornaments flickering glittery gold, and below: a horde of store-wrapped gifts placed around a shoebox filled with snow, my tiny hands digging for a childhood I’d want to remember, a blueprint for memories that would never melt.

       LUCHA LIBRE

      It was the mask I wanted more

      than fame, the tight turquoise leather

      tied with red shoestring around my nape,

      the thought of being


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