Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His poetry, art, and photography has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Four Feathers Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Webzine. His latest poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press.

If I Lose Weight

If I lose weight,
it is surely by mistake.
If you say I
smell like cigarettes,
it is always 
second hand smoke.
This figure I
parade around took 
many years of eating
delicious food.
As I age, I 
am reminded that
this weight needs to
be shed sooner
rather than later.

The doctor is always 
well-intentioned 
as Jaime Sabines
wrote in Consider It Well.
I have tried many diets
throughout my life.

The only time I lose weight 
is for the attention of the woman
I love. As I age,
true love is the only thing that eludes me.

Bring the Mountain Home

Let’s bring the mountain home 
piece by piece in a large ladle 
where the dirt, dust, and rocks 
keep each other company. It 
cannot be a snowy mountain 
unless you are thirsty for water 
from the melting snow. It needs 
to be a brown mountain, a black 
mountain, or a green mountain. 
Let’s bring it home in barrels, 
dumpsters, and wheelbarrows. 
Let’s do it under the cover of 
darkness as the wolves and 
coyotes howl in disgust, as bears 
follow our lead to suburban 
streets with dirt in their mouths. 
Let’s bring the mountain home 
or at least take a photo on your 
cellphone to reproduce it later 
on canvas with oils and pastels, 
a mountain created from your 
own hand and imagination. 
Leave the animals behind. They 
have already served their purpose. 
Bring a roadrunner along just 
to keep it safe from the coyote.