“Directions”

The man asking for directions sighs when I answer him in Spanish,
shakes my hand, almost hugs me. He tells me I look more Puerto Rican
than Mexican but we are not all hermanos, primos, and maybe that is
why I excuse him like a brother or a cousin when he points to my books
and asks what I am studying and hears “la policia.” Before I can
correct him, he releases another sigh and says alright, says he knew
he could trust me when he saw me, says that is the best thing for a
man, to be strong, to stand for something, that in this country it is
like money to be a police officer, the girls love it, family approves,
and your boys know they can trust you, and as he goes on about parking
tickets and handcuffs, I think about all the nice things being said
and whether he would say them about “la poesia” and how the thing I do
study is made up of everything we think we hear.

–by José Angel Araguz
found in Hanging Loose No. 98