Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Brief Conversations With Gary In Downtown, Los Angeles 

Thanks for the pancakes.

You should smile more.

You are my heart, Luis,

you are my soul.

What is your name man because

I don’t want to call you Fraser?

You remind me of Fraser.

Hey Luis, what do you know

about Jennifer Aniston?

I saw her driving in a red car.

My stomach is killing me.

I should not have eaten

that Chinese food out of the trash.

It is cold, Luis, aren’t you cold?

There is this guy at the tent

that tried to stab me last week.

Could you get me something to eat?

It’s my birthday Luis.

I have a 25-year-old daughter.

Voices told me that I should jump
off this bridge.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, lives in Southern California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His first book of poems, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His other poetry books, broadsides, and chapbooks, have been published by Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, New American Imagist, New Polish Beat, Poet's Democracy, and Ten Pages Press (e-book). Blue Collar Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, and Yellow Mama Magazine published some of his recent poems.