abecedarian 21
after opening all the letters
before dawn did you bathe by
city streetlights? did you crash
during daybreak driving towards death?
even the 405 reminds me of you—
frantically fighting fatigue again in
gridlock, are you still afraid of glaucoma
hurting your eyes? has it hurt? have you eaten?
its irrevocable. letters from the department of
justice—jaundiced & jammed in pillowcases
knapsacked quilted—keeping em’ safe to
listen for your father’s voice. landmarking
most of his memories or motor functions.
not knowing if ice will show up at the door
or when you’ll finally lose your osteoporotic keys,
parked patiently somewhere near abandonment &
quietude. quivering in prayer for quintessence.
remembering your father’s ruddy laugh because
someday they might shadow lock him in silver steel.
tomorrow never really smells like tuesday,
untying the knot in your throat as you hop in—
veer towards the left lane, missing the exit.
windshield glass reflected windows of your iris
xeroxed by glare. ‘xactly what freeway are you in?
you never tell me. you just drive off towards
zirconium streets zigzagging through traffic.
are you still there?
rainy day triple sonnet crown
after dorothy chan
i’m somewhere stuck between gloom
& an afterlife i didn’t get to choose
ash in my pocket way glitter never
leaves earth, way microplastics tongue
our lungs, way poems smear karmic
countenances while you drive home
resurgence is not in fact in the eye
of the bed-holder but instead cupped
within your blue cherry nova supreme
yucca—how coming in the morning
changes perspective towards the realm
of enlightenment, only borderline
respectfully, as i hear the city tremble
in the apple pie gut of my gray california
someone in the neighborhood is more
miserable at the day, won’t appreciate
shadow-play with the venetian blinds
won’t ever hear the whisper of my pink
trumpet like when celestial beings read
me byron in the leviathan of my mind
they said my voice was marigold—way
you think of it when you think of me
don’t lie semblance of sound is only
fleeting because it’s miscommunicating
with your body, perhaps the ghosts lodged
in the vault of my childhood home are only
waiting to remember their recurring dream
one where they stare intensely at kitchen tile
dusky blue, way a song is only sad when you
remember it, way i see you seeing me—
there are moments of light hidden behind
digression, this being one of those moments—
sometimes, i remember reading about my death
waiting around in bedrot-style to stumble upon
a poem to save me—way it wasn’t this one or
that one but you—hidden underneath this son-
net; something about portals & the transient
whisper of liminality inside spaces where rain
cannot exist but instead is merely hypothesis
outside, i’m somewhere between streetlight
& shadow in the pocket of green neon age—
what do you call a city that rains in gleaming sun
jimmy vega is the child of Mexican immigrants, a Chicanx Los Angeles born and raised poet, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. their debut poetry collection will be published by What Books Press in 2025. Formally trained at California Institute of the Arts & at University of California, Los Angeles, they are a former 2023 ELL Faculty Fellow at CalArts. vega’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Broken Lens Journal, Maintenant, Furious Pure Magazine, and elsewhere. they are the Associate Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts/Center. they live in Los Angeles, on unceded Tongva land, with their partner Gladys, & schnauzer, Olive. Find more at jimmy-vega.com