2 poems by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva

SIN DOCUMENTOS

Of God, we only understood His wrath, and still, we spoke about Him 

as if He were an older brother. Another one of us: brown and buzzed cut, 

running into the ditch, learning about the dangers of tall grasses. 

Of bullets. Uninsured. On weekends, He’d drive across the bridge 

to get drunk off two-dollar liquor. Listened to country music 

while sucking bone marrow when afternoons got cold and lonely. 

Not the good kind of songs. The ones with heft and heartache, 

pulled from the deepest wells of His throat. Untranslatable. 

Then, like the rest of us, He’d return. Remorseful. Heavy-breath 

and bloodshot, speaking another language. Smelling like a burnt museum 

with souvenirs He’d smuggled inside His pockets: A silver tooth. 

A stuffed bird. A dried-up seahorse. A miracle. A new wound for us to share. 

GOD MADE DIRT, AND DIRT DON’T HURT

They say the only language God understands is thirst. 

Listens to that craving rumbling out of your mouth 

more than any sweet or piercing prayer. And that the ground,

and anything slamming against it doesn’t belong to Him.

Truth be told, I grew up believing that nothing precious 

came from dirt, was careful not to spill food, a drink, trip, 

tumble or fall. Never sat on grassy hills or sand at the beach, 

never picked anything up, making sure I was absolved. 

So that no one could mockingly say, “Te chupó el diablo!” 

But, when a blue-eyed man, using his breath as bait, led me 

by my wrists down the corridors of his thirst, I complied. 

Was God listening then? I wanted to heed (hand to the heavens, 

I did). I believed him when he said I was precious

while making me lap up sand to make mud with my spit. 

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection Cowboy Park won the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press. 

15 July 2024