Two Poems
by
Luis Salinas
I SALUTE THE DEAD
In this drunken town
bitten by the whores
of Texas, I pause with
a beer to salute the dead.
Someone's in my house
-the dead child ofTexas
haunts the woodwork
and the child is everywhere
tonight waiting for the dawn,
tomorrow maybe playing
in the mud.
My nephew asks
if
the black
children he sees on 1V
are the poor, and I reply ,
"We are the poor. "
He cannot understand,
and I know this house
is as poor as this drunken
town
and I drink my beer and
hiccup into song.
