Angel Zapata's Page

When my brother and I were kids, we’d play a game we made up called “Bum City.” We’d tear the bed sheets off the bed, toss toys around the room, dress up in layers of clothes and pretend we were homeless. Outside our elementary school, a group of real homeless men had taken residence over the steel grates of the subway beneath the streets of Manhattan. All winter long, the warm air of steam pipes would rise up and swaddle their thin bodies in butterfly wind. One dark-haired man would wave to us… Continue

Above their heads, she watches them, those thinning,
bad salon dye jobs, bald spots, dandruff and grease.
Narrow feet that seemingly jut themselves further
beneath the craggy cliffs of skin-pocked noses.
All day long, suspended from the flat, white fence
she attacks the machine, pulls off black rubber plugs.
She carries a bucket of paint, stains her boots
with glossy splatter, sings gospel under her breath.
Unnoticed, the ground continues to rumble,
deletes the echo from the equation, falls deaf… Continue

I believe in the father.
It was my sperm, confirmed.
Nine months later,
face to face with my only son.

I believe wholly in the spirit,
inebriate of pomp and circumstance.
Fidelity in marriage,
so sad a saint.

I believe in God.
I attribute this to my ex-wife.
I pray she’s going there
if hell exists.

I can hear the guy on the other side of my gray cubicle scratch his polyester balls, but he still wants me to respond to him via e-mail. All around me, the mind-slaves wrap their warped heads in cashmere turbans and pretend to be geniuses or genies. I can’t recall the last time they said anything intelligent or granted my wish. In order to concentrate, I must snag a mouse by its tail and press down on its plastic head until it squeals. A multitude of carpal-tunnel sufferers whimper in comatose p… Continue

Little did I suspect
the devils, like sugar
inside my coffee,
were hot and sweet.

And neither did
the friction of her sex
glued to my fingers
entertain angels.

But who is really
to know while wives
sleep and bills
go unpaid?

If bed sheets
are stitched by virgins,
then who dares
unmake the bed?

I am alone
to grasp my brain
and jerk the fabric
from the hair.

But what if this ceiling
isn’t the very top,
but someone else’s
bottom?

The floor would not
be for standing at all;
it would be for lyi… Continue