Charro Jacket

Charro Jacket

By Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith

When the Dodgers won the World Series
Joe Kelly wore a charro jacket to el White house,
Olvidate. His big glasses just
adding to his all-American look.
Pero sabes que his madre is puro Riverside.
 
Ted Williams would never have owned
a Charro jacket, even though his mom cleaned
rooms and made tortillas by hand. His homers
must have been rockets of internal oppression.
 
I wonder if this went down at Joe’s high school
while sitting in a dugout on a bright So Cal afternoon,
Joe needed to check his white teammates
when they said something about “all the illegals” in the
classes. And later when they imitated
the mispronunciation of words “school”
becoming “eschool”,  “ship” evolving into “sheep”
this of course signaling to them, the dugout crowd,
the destruction of Western Civilization, the goats arriving
before the priests. An existing social order
that felt like a fastball hit off a splintering bat
resulting in an easy fly ball for the second baseman.
 
What did it feel like to put that charro jacket
onto his torso in the Capitol? That fabric cut with lines
like the banks of that arroyo in every barrio. The jacket
a classic fit, created over time and by seasonal
flowing waters that ran on and off when the land
was not this place of baseball. And later the
arroyo shaping itself to the world it moves into, infuses,
adapts slowly but still vines into sharp lines
through the valley that provides for the indifferent fields.
 
Who doesn’t like the charro jacket? It is the
sound of horns before the sound of horns.
It is Chavela Vargas wearing it as she sings
La Llorona, danger, damage, desire all
blessed under the buttons. The charro jacket
is the story of celebration or the story of struggle or both.

Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith was born in Merida, Yucatan, grew up in Tucson, Arizona and taught English at Tucson High Magnet School for 27 years. Much of his poetry explores growing up near the border, being raised biracial/bilingual and teaching in a large urban school where 70% of the students are American/Mexican. His writings have appeared in Touchstone Journal, The Rockvale Journal, Allium Journal the Anthology America We Call Your Name and other places too. Kelly his wife of 30 years helps edit the work, sometimes.

Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can buy this print on Red Bubble.

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