Roy Guzmán

Roy G. Guzmán is a Honduran poet whose first collection is coming out from Graywolf Press on May 5, 2020. Raised in Miami, Florida, Roy is the recipient of a 2019 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Their work has been included in the Best New Poets 2017 anthology and Best of the Net 2017. Roy holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and the Honors College at Miami Dade College. They currently live in Minneapolis, where they are pursuing a PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Minnesota.
PAYDAY LOAN PHENOMENOLOGY
we sit in my stepfather’s 2000 Nissan Altima with a broken
AC me in the backseat my parents in the front of a pending storm
sweating reciting our overused interior monologue this must be
the last time we’ll take out a loan we’ll have no use for future loans
Mom & I get two weeks to pay the loan my stepfather a whole
month because he’s retired has five credit cards left to resolve he
used one to come see me graduate their first time in New England
& I place my hand on my mother’s shoulder I can feel the behemoth
of impotence stomping inside her a familiar trespasser if her anxiety
kicks in her stomach gets upset she falls from a cliff of what if I hads
like glowworms during nights when the Honduran government
coordinates a series of power outages & we break tortillas
by the candlelight drinking blowflies in the water
crushed ice is trapped in the AC’s mouth our sound
financial adviser won’t treat the air we breathe like a Ponzi scheme
which is to say that even after sixteen years the car has less than 100,
000 miles we run upwards of 100,000 miles in an average lifetime
within the corridors of our worst fears as we seek some modicum
of salvation from there never being enough & we ought to acknowledge
that more often we ought to drive back to the beach & throw ourselves
in the water anticipate the tropical storm always heading our way
you get a customized tropical storm where I was raised & you watch
as a cruise ship sails beside you how many times have I seen dissenters
board that melancholic ship & wave from the deck of confusion
as though I carried an invisible heart shaped camera
my mother
is wearing a long-sleeved shirt the sun is skating careless circles
on our necks my mother might roll a towel over her arm one day
I said in a psychoanalysis class that I had a dream about her
breastfeeding me & handing me off to my aunt because I bit
off something that wasn’t her nipple in the car my stepfather
is hoping he’ll find a decent hobby before he dies he used to sail
boats back in Cuba lost his possessions as the revolution gained traction
& I disappointed him when I showed no interest in fishing my parents
do not believe in friendship since every apartment we move to is built
with unheard screams night lamps thrown across the room with shades
of soft pink flowers a jar of nacho cheese on the floor my stepfather
slipping & almost landing on the shards of my mother’s buckler
the payday loan shop
needs its own parking lot we pull up in front of the crater where we
hired legal counselors to help us apply for green cards how we have
a firm connection to things that cause us trauma is a story
worth retelling our citizenship like a dry spell operation florid
storm social expendability we carry blue passports everywhere we go
to remind us of how others have been snatched from their dreams
our skin callused from too much persecution we don’t live
in Arizona but we are Los afortunados no longer like prohibited
liquor in a dusty one bedroom for two families we are USDA approved
pre-processed GPSd our liberties red white & blue
police lights over a spillage of innocence we are animals with eyes
shaped like prison cells but we can’t hold any more inmates
because our vision has been incarcerated if we swim underwater
we can’t decide when to rise to draw another breath from harm
& the cops here
are evidently Latinos will batter you when they catch you hustling
but dance with you during pride parades which are more like funerals
their truncheons like limp bodies swinging inconclusive the white
cops buying media luna sandwiches sinking their teeth on what they
mispronounce with pride the Black cops enjoying Latin music I know
you want me with my hands up you know I want cha legs
spread apart my parents teach me that when you labor tirelessly
God rewards you but even Job knew that browns’ faiths won’t bring
back their dead because we woke up this morning to face the mirror
of disconsolation beyond our eyelids in nature there is an animal serving
as scapegoat for all living things a memory that consumes
all others I am that dollar bill greasy men must take spit
index & thumb to pull apart
as soon as the other customers
begin to show up in some hell even a cash advance stands for protection
my mother says we should hurry in she shrinks the distance of a
long & burdensome desert beneath her feet & my stepfather worries
that his car might get towed in North by Northwest Cary Grant
dodges a crop duster in an attempt to find the man with whom
his identity has been mistaken the bullets hit the ground around him
& I remember when we used to hide from La Migra I remember
making a carapace with my arms around my head when my boicunt
equaled deportation so that fag was the only thing that could impale me
a man once neared his nose to my neck & said I can get used to
you smelling like a child
& now a long line of people
has started to snake around the shop people who look like us who sound
like us when they say gracias confidence is our rare species
who yawn like us in the middle of a plead & cross their arms
viejos with Styrofoam cups of coffee who also cross themselves & scratch
their heads grieve like us because our bones cry the same way
& when we ask to use the restroom without a doubt the restroom
is broken they haven’t called the plumber we acknowledge one
another say buenos días cómo les va usted es el siguiente cuantos
días tengo para pagar no los hemos visto en meses (even though
we were there two months ago skipped a month) the cash dispenser
is broken sign here & here & here & put your initials here & here
& here don’t forget to fill out this information right here how is
your father we haven’t seen him around here much (he too was there
two months ago)
the same woman stamps one sheet stamps another she
is enjoying her new life as a mommy couldn’t take too many days off
after she had the baby her husband was laid off & the shop
is carpeted gray you can tell where the café con leches have fallen
a woman needs to buzz you in they don’t see us like criminals
but nothing says we can’t be no seas malpensa’o viejo no sean
malpensa’os why must you think the worst about people
& you should see us in the car on our way home looking like
we got paid looking like we just went to physical therapy
shoulders back in place no more sore necks we’ll pay the bills
on time won’t have any money leftover my heart is a marathon
with no participants my mother will ask my stepfather if he remembered
to take out the chicken from the freezer leave it on the sink for dinner
there is a comfort to preparing a meal together even if you won’t
ever eat it together
we get home our door opens
to an apartment we can’t accept we can’t afford it’s closer to work
& we want to skip the morning traffic our footsteps hit a floor
that’s lost all sensation in its fingers there’s been so much rain lately
all our umbrellas can do is sink deeper our furniture never belongs
to us we are expecting its undetermined future owner to show up
& load it to the back of his truck dinner will be served tasting
a miracle requires disbelief we must steal from one another we open
the fridge & a voice in our heads says everything in there is a kind
of mercy the light bulbs need replacing in there an unfathomable
darkness a stillness shows us how one replicates a body
just to practice disavowing it
as ritual we count the time it takes us
to walk from our bedrooms to the living room from the living room
to the bathroom from the bathroom to the kitchen a false sequence
a false geometry most days nothing can find us in that untamable
forest of dimensions our minds can’t listen to themselves when we
crawl away from each other’s gaze my mother a warzone my father
a dismantled effigy for a country of fanatics I was in high school
when my parents said we’d eat less that week so I could buy a book
I felt I needed to read because it appeared on a list of texts you perused
to improve your verbal skills I read it in one sitting I remember
looking up when I was done my stepfather fixed on the news
my mother storing leftovers I didn’t close the book until they both
fell asleep afterwards I understood why certain books are banned
why I distrust perception why my parents praised walls so I didn’t
have to see the abuse or think in absolutes that whoever claims
empathy might be forging shackles for your ankles somewhere