We live in memory –whispering sweet nothings to the fruitful and the dreamers.

"Abuelita In the Backyard"

By Roy Conboy

My grandma totters 
around the backyard,
whispering sweet nothings
to the lemons
and camellias.

The citrus swell
in clumsy passion
at her voice,
plumping up,
sharp and fertile
in the sun.

The flowers shake
their blossoms
in the heat,
swaying proudly
like bikini clad curves 
on the beach.

Abuelita totters
around the backyard,
stopping to hear
a grandson play
an old Spanish melody
on the guitarra.

As my strings rock and sting,
her breath goes short –
romance remembrance
and passion secrets
I don’t want to know about
are deep in her eyes.

She’s over my shoulder
as I pick the chiles
for red sauce,
spice making sweat
on my brow
where her kisses
forever rest.

Grandma totters
around the backyard,
but not as you and I 
totter in reality,
only as we 
live in memory –
whispering sweet nothings
to the fruitful
and the dreamers.

"Chihuahua 1913"​

In my imagination 
I see them standing there, 
on the platform,
while the train beside them
champs and steams,
Chihuahua 1913.

In my imagination
abuela reaches for him,
straightens the fine suit
they’ve tailored together,
brushes away the dust
that’s come riding in
on the hot wind
to mar his shoulders.

In my imagination
the whistle blows,
the conductor calls,
and mi abuelo
removes his fedora,
then bends to her cheek,
so gentlemanly,
so stiffly.

And perhaps he whispers 
“I’m sorry,”
words she waves away
as she has done
many times before.
“I’m sorry…”
for the drunken nights,
the shouted curses,
the broken plates,
the hidden frailty,
the dark blood of ancestry.

But then, in my imagining,
the whistle blows again,
and with one last look of longing,
one last word of love
to the niños --
Guadalupe, Heriberto,
and the dream of Rafael --
he picks up his suitcase,
battered as roughly 
as his corazón, 
and turns away.

A short walk, a forever trek
to the long impatient train,
straining and steaming
to be away,
adios to familia,
adios to all familiar terrain.

In my imagination
I am next to him
on my own viaje
across time’s cold forgetting
as the train clanks away.
I turn as he turns
and we both look back
to her eyes and arms,
to their casa,
their canción,
their ciudad.

Hearts filled with regret
like a thirst that cannot
be assuaged,
like a hunger
that eats la alma away
as his home recedes 
in the distance,
as his home fades away.

What thoughts,
what pictures,
what tears,
what curses,
what storms,
what fears
shake him,
shake me, 
in those trembling seats,
on that desperate voyage
through canyons and deserts,
mountains, forests, ranches,
cacti, sand, and bloodied rivers?

What sundowns,
what shakedowns,
what stars do we share
along the unforgiving tracks
clacking and sparking
as we each say goodbye
to his own,
to his past,
to his México.

"Old Caddy"

Old Caddy sits up on hubs
in the driveway at Tio’s casa.
For sure she's a project
that'll never get done.
The old one tinkers 
on her brakes and chrome, 
straw hat mornings
before heat takes hold.

Remembrance of
my Tio Alberto,
humming in his passion 
for the sexy thrills
and luxuries
of the 72 DeVille.

La Bamba blasting
all suave and hip swing
from AM radio,
while fingers brown and thin
rub polish deep
into fenders and trim.

"She's muy guapo, no?
Muy smooth, muy cold."
(You mean cool, Tio?)
"Like riding with the angels -
Ba ba ba ba ba Bamba, baby - 
cruising heaven on four wheels!"

But after the sun,
la luna high en la noche,
elm full of dancing leaves,
he'd stroke the leather
and refuse to cry
on the whiskey scented seat.

"Why do you love her so?"
I'd wonder at him.
"Porque, mijo, porque,"
the drunk words came -
"For all the memories
that she does not contain.

"She's not the hiding of sisters
from soldiers and mayhem,
not the bodies 
piled high by Rio Chuviscar,
there's no blood
seeping into this car.

"She's not the carriage 
we pulled across the border,
not the Model A
that took Papa to his grave,
not the beating in the alley
where barrio meets Main.

"She's not soldier
freezing in foxhole,
not terror in the dark
clutching the grenade,
not the bloody dreams
that never fade."

Then drunk words
turned to silence
in polished night 
and glittering chrome - 
whiskey, cough, curse, 
and drunken drive.

Old soul sits up on hubs
in the driveway down the blood.
Old hands keep on shining
till life gets done.
Tio taps and tinkers
on my songs and storms,
in the mornings 
before dreams get worn.

Roy Conboy is a Latino/Irish/Indigenous writer and teacher. His poetic plays have been seen in the struggling black boxes on the edges of the mainstream theatre in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Antonio, Denver, and more.  His poetry has been seen in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Third Estate’s Quaranzine, Freshwater Literary Journal, New American Writing, and Ethel, and has been featured on Latinx Lit Magazine’s podcast.  His first book of poetry, River, Street, Sky and Casa, has recently been published by Hydroelectric Press.  In his 35 years of teaching, including three decades as the head of the Playwriting Program at San Francisco State University, he created multiple programs that gave thousands of students of diverse ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds a place to find and raise their voices.

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