Looking Out, Looking In by William Luis

Author:William Luis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2013-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

tito madera smith

(for Dr. Juan Flores)

he claims he can translate palés matos’

black poetry faster than i can talk,

and that if i get too smart,

he will double translate pig latin

english right out of webster’s

dictionary, do you know him?

he claims he can walk into east harlem

apartment where langston hughes gives

spanglish classes for newly arrived

immigrants seeking a bolitero-numbers

career and part-time vendors of cuchi-

fritters sunday afternoon in central

park, do you know him?

he claims to have a stronghold of the

only santería secret baptist sect in

west harlem, do you know him?

he claims he can talk spanish styled in

sunday dress eating crabmeat-jueyes

brought over on the morning eastern

plane deep fried by la negra costoso

joyfully singing puerto rican folklore:

“maría luisa no seas brava,

llevame contigo pa la cama,” or “

oiga, capitán delgado, hey, captain delgaro,

mande a revisar la grama, please inspect

the grass, que dicen que un aeroplano,

they say that an airplane throws marijuana

seeds.”

do you know him? yes, you do,

i know you know him, that’s right,

madera smith, tito madera smith:

he blacks and prieto talks at the same time,

splitting his mother’s santurce talk,

twisting his father’s south carolina soul,

adding new york-scented blackest harlem

brown-eyes diddy bops, tú sabes mami,

that i can ski like a bomba soul salsa

mambo turns to aretha franklin stevie

wonder nicknamed patato guaguancó steps,

do you know him?

he puerto rican talks to las mamitas

outside the pentecostal church, and

he gets away with it, fast-paced i

understand-you-my-man, with clave

sticks coming out of his pockets hooked

to his stereophonic 15-speaker indispensable

disco sounds blasting away at cold reality

struggling to say estás buena, baby

as he walks out of tune and out of

step with alleluia cascabells,

puma sneakers,

pants rolled up,

shirt cut in middle chest,

santería chains,

madamo pantallas,

into the spanish social club,

to challenge elders in dominoes,

like the king of el diario’s

budweiser tournament

drinking cerveza-beer

like a champ,

do you know him?

well, i sure don’t,

and if i did, i’d

refer him to 1960

social scientists

for assimilation

acculturation

digging

autopsy

into

their

heart

attacks,

oh,

oh,

there

he

comes,

you can call him tito,

or you can call him madera,

or you can call him smitty,

or you can call him mr. t.,

or you can call him nuyorican,

or you can call him black,

or you can call him latino,

or you can call him mr. smith,

his sharp eyes of awareness,

greeting us in aristocratic harmony:

“you can call me many things, but

you gotta call me something.”

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