The Acentos Review
 
Bio Christopher Soto is a queer latino poet from Southern California, who published his first chapbook "How to Eat Glass" with Still Life Press in the Fall of 2012. He is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at NYU.
2 Poems by Christopher Soto The Old Neighborhood sitting on the porch in the old neighborhood i talked to the kids playing in an inflatable pool on the missing front lawn. i used to be them, swimming in my cousin’s white undershirt then wet and hugging the leg of my tia as she patted and fried tostones, as my eyes followed the cucarachas dashing across the caramel tile and underneath the refrigerator door. the kids in this neighborhood learn young that nothing is owned, only borrowed- a cousin’s white undershirt, the security of tia’s leg, the sight of cucarachas. The New Mestizo: Growing Up Salvadorian and Puerto Rican in Mexican California when the viejitos leather skinned and aburrido rise with their dormant hands lifting heavy nalgas off the plastic green sillas en tio no se quien’s backyard for no se quien’s cumpleaño or baby shower or the arrival of an unknown cousin into town or any holiday they rise for one of two reasons: 1. los viejitos will rise for food (only if their children are not in yelling distance to get it for them): always carne asada, arroz con gondulez, y a cold cerveza, at minimum. but when it’s a real special occasion you’ll find that momma cooks that pollo in her vegetable soup so long it becomes shreds in your mouth, tia oils the empanadas crisp while the cheese drips out of pupusas, horchata and kolachampan sit ready to drink on the table, for dessert abuela made a tres leches cake, flan, and limber topped with cinnamon, and some more shit that nobody knows what it’s called, but they swear it’s from their childhood days, the good ones. 2. los viejitos will also rise to dance: and the neighbors come over since they can’t sleep with the bass of tio’s vintage stereo system blasting that same old meringue mix tape that he always plays. and when the viejitos dance, they baila hard- spin and dip and clap and laugh almost to tears. SHOUT for no reason, they are alive! some salsa and cumbia and bachata sneak into the night’s playlist while lil primos get denied their ipod requests. then when the viejitos are finally tired but don’t want to leave the party yet, to isolation, to a job they hate, to foreign tongues, and stoic eyes, to fast food and pop music, they sit together for a moment, dripping sweat, telling stories of nostalgia, of teenage love with balcony serenades, working coffee plantations in the campo during summer, the war and how they can never go back home. into the a.m., billiards are shot on a tilted table in the garage, two caged macaws cry next to the orange trees, the primas reapply eyeliner and braid each others’ hair, primos wrestle over videogames, while the piñata is strung over tree branches by the borrachos howling and swinging from the rooftop- it’s time to crack the final celebration! and watch the new mestizo rise to claim the dulces hanging high.