3 Poems
Jose Hernandez Diaz
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) and Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Cincinnati Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Nation, Poetry, The Progressive, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. He teaches, edits, and writes in Southeast Los Angeles. Read more and get in touch at josehernandezdiaz.com
ANTONIO AGUILAR, THE ROOSTER
A painter woke to the memory of a rooster’s song. However, it was 2 o’clock in the morning. Nevertheless, he picked up his favorite easel and went downstairs to make a cup of coffee. He made it strong with a bit of sugar. It was the last day of summer. The leaves had begun to fall at sunset, or was it merely always autumn in his heart?
After he ate a breakfast of chorizo con huevos y café, he gathered his painting supplies. He painted a rooster with a traje de charro and a colorful rooster head. Then he painted a simple sun with a smiling face. The rooster’s name was Antonio Aguilar. At sunrise, in the painting, the rooster sang famous Rancheras to the suburbs of Los Ángeles.
THE BLUE ROOSTER AND THE ORANGE MOON
In the middle of the 19th century along the countryside of France, there was a blue rooster who was afraid of the orange moon. The blue rooster slept all night until the orange moon was long gone. It feared the eeriness of the moon. Sometimes, it had nightmares about the orange moon. Then one day, the orange moon appeared extremely early, before sunset. The blue rooster ran around in circles, as if headless. It shrieked a bizarre ancient cry amidst the chaos. Finally, the blue rooster fell to the floor and collapsed. It fell asleep, like a newborn. As the orange moon faded away the next day, the blue rooster slowly arose, like a river. Slowly, like the sunrise.
THE SURFER
I work at a zoo. I feed the animals and bathe them once a week. Water is the blood of the earth. On the weekends I surf. Sometimes, I go on weekday mornings if I have the energy. I once caught a wave that took me away from it all. Not that I hate work, I love what I do. But catching waves takes you to another realm. A zone of freedom, glory, and waves. My father taught me how to surf. He didn’t surf himself, he was a blue-collar worker, but he paid for my lessons. On the bottom of my board, I engraved a poem I wrote in his honor.
