Cowboy Park

Eduardo MartÍnez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX, to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, the Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Lambda Literary Foundation, along with a teaching fellowship from Columbia University, where he earned his MFA. He was the writer-in-residence at St. Alban’s School for Boys in Washington, DC, and teaches and resides in New York City.

I.
Learning the Language
Colorete
ESL Lesson
The Boy inside the Gun
I Never Wanted to Speak
Grief Workshop
Lone Star
Portrait of My Mother in Her Youth
Son of a Gun
Tormenta
Composite Sketch
I Was Only a Boy
Portrait of Aging Father
With Jesus in Our Mouths
Portrait of My Mother Studying for Her Citizenship Exam
Angelo
Sin Documentos
Don’t Look Back, Little Halo
Still Life with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Portrait of Angelo with his Possessions
Confirmation
Almost-Grief

II.
Scenes from the Bone Orchard
Portrait of a Boy on the Other Side of a Glory Hole
Small Vices
Cowboy Park
Vaquero
Show Pony
And God Punished Him for Being Disobedient
God May Squeeze but Won’t Strangle You
Torero
Mud Song
Estrellita
God Made Dirt, and Dirt Don’t Hurt
Tease
Adultery
God Gave You Hands, So Use Them
Horseshoe
Now You’re Talking
Ode to a Leather Harness
Bracero with a Tattoo of the Virgin Mother
Negation Litany for a Fallen God
There is Little Left to Say About Harm
Nostalgia Cruising

III.

When I Spoke the Language of Donkeys
After the Shooting, You Have a Panic Attack In the Supermarket
Portrait of an Absent Brother
Mordida
What’s Above Us Is Either Dead or Still Dying
Angelo Is Probably Dead
A Protagonist Once Said
Letters from a Younger Brother, Mourning
Recuperado
Portrait of Speaker inside a Burning House
Broomtail Ballad
The Simple Hour
Cowboy Park
Mustang
Purgatory
Portrait of the Speaker Riding a Greyhound Bus

Notes
Acknowledgments