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Blessed Be The Truth-Tellers
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For Jack Agüeros
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In the projects of Brooklyn, everyone lied.
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My mother used to say:
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If somebody starts a fight,
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just walk away.
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Then somebody would smack
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the back of my head
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and dance around me in a circle, laughing.
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When I was twelve, pus bubbled
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on my tonsils, and everyone said:
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After the operation, you can have
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all the ice cream you want.
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I bragged about the deal;
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no longer would I chase the ice cream truck
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down the street, panting at the bells
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to catch Johnny the ice cream man,
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who allegedly sold heroin the color of vanilla
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from the same window.
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Then Jack the Truth-Teller visited the projects,
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Jack who herded real camels and sheep
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through the snow of East Harlem every Three Kings’ Day,
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Jack who wrote sonnets of the jail cell
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and the racetrack and the boxing ring,
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Jack who crossed his arms in a hunger strike
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until the mayor hired more Puerto Ricans.
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And Jack said:
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You gonna get your tonsils out?
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Ay bendito cuchifrito Puerto Rico.
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That’s gonna hurt.
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I was etherized,
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then woke up on the ward
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heaving black water onto white sheets.
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A man poking through his hospital gown
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leaned over me and sneered:
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You think you got it tough? Look at this!
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and showed me the cauliflower tumor
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behind his ear. I heaved up black water again.
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The ice cream burned.
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Vanilla was a snowball spiked with bits of glass.
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My throat was red as a tunnel on fire
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after the head-on collision of two gasoline trucks.
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This is how I learned to trust
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the poets and shepherds of East Harlem.
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Blessed be the Truth-Tellers,
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for they shall have all the ice cream they want.
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