Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Alejandro Escudé

Live on FB

I read into it, the page. The language

the same, a sporty language, a flippancy

like a jockey on a horse: password,

post, like, and live…in anxious flux.

Nothing like the silence of dinnertime

as I face my son, daughter, wife, nothing

to say after a day of bone-aching work,

the commute home, hours lost reading

personalized license plates, nvr2late,

howIroll, Imjsayn. Now, six degrees

from murderers? On top of the list

of People Who You May Know who

disliked me long and not so long ago?

My hands have liver spots, I found one

and now two—my wife teaches me

men can bear feelings deep inside too

that reveal themselves in a swift spook,

like the fall I had today trying to stop

the dog from running out, a slip like

an aged man, against the redbrick pillar.

I was helped inside by my five-year-

old daughter where I wept for the dog

that nearly escaped my hand, same

hand I use to check how many likes

I got for a poem, a picture, a stance.

I watched the old, black man put one

garbage bag-holding hand up to stop

the killer’s bullet in the video—a gun

the shape of an arcing F floating

in a blue-framed screen, then

the electronic disgrace of death.

Alejandro Escudé

Alejandro Escudé’s first book of poems, My Earthbound Eye, was published in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.