Felipe De La Rosa
On Sunday Everyone in Paramount Dreams the Same Dream:
After Mathias Svalina
You are cruising the night down Somerset inside a Cheyenne,
bajita como tus animos. Each time a corrido belico starts, you
throw your beer in the trucks bed, bump it, so loud the bass crushes
verbs, scattering them along the streets. Then you notice another
Cheyenne, blindada, wax so bright contrabando reflects off the
paint. Los contrabandos follow you. You put the volume down.
You intensify like the city’s drought. You make a right into the
Sans, thinking only the devil casts a shadow there at 3 AM. But the
contrabandos follow. You don’t know that’s their territory. You
don’t know their presence means lilies on a casket. You don’t
know they’ve made the devil flinch. You make a stop. You hear
rain pounding your truck, then a warm rush down your milky
body. In the morning, they find you tossed. A gash on you roaring
as loud as your truck once. Your face glistens like the color of rust.
You are remembered each year to the date by mint velas, and
fingers clasping a prayer for a rush of water to devour the madness.
Felipe De La Rosa is a first-generation graduate of California State University Long Beach, where he obtained his undergraduate degree in English, Creative Writing. He holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing, Poetry, from San José State University. A native of South East Los Angeles, he writes about his experiences in labor work and community struggles from a perspective desiring change. His recent work has centered on the LA River. He has published in SinCesar, Enjambed, RipRap, and received an honorable mention for the Alta California Chapbook Prize (2022). You can find him on IG @felipebdelarosa.
