Wherein I Challenge The Royal Chicano Air Force
To A Dogfight

We had an
abandoned chicken coop
in the backyard

and on the roof
I fashioned
a helicopter cockpit.

The military
training flights
took them over our house

and back
to their base
in San Antonio.

Every afternoon
I’d climb onto the chicken coop
and don my pilot’s suit

and talked into
an old army surplus
microphone.

I trained
and trained and trained
to earn

my pilot’s wings
that I use now
to pilot this very poem

into my childhood
and back
with such precision.