Only In San Jose - Giselle Tran

Only in San Jose
can you stare at some combination
of blue, yellow, pink, and green pastel
lights behind a wall of booze while
ordering Jaeger Bombs and Kamikazes
from worn Vietnamese bartenders,
and listen to traditional Spanish stories,
guitars and trumpets working together
during weekly goth night when thirty or forty
misfits dressed in black with too much make-up
come crawling out, but the band on stage
in cow costumes keeps yelling “Son of a bitch,”
while kicking the shit out of their instruments,
the words “Fuck off” taped artfully to the backs,
fake webs hanging over them as flashing white
and purple rains down, the Buddha statues watching.