Memory of Town Fiesta, with the Smell of Overripe Fruit

Chico: I can tell you why I never liked 
this fruit with its rough-reptile skin 

that smells like the breath of a drunk 
who placed his face too near my own; 

a space invasion. Chico: I was barely ten; 
I have no clue who that person was and why 

he pulled me from a bench with a gnarled 
hand—unwelcome press in the center 

of the square as a rondalla played tinkle-
tinkle music on a stage and no one thought 

there could be any harm. This is how I learned 
before language there is the skin of language, 

its auras of meaning converging around you: 
air like a stone, air like a chokehold, air like air.