The Way a Flock of Birds Improvises
To Rosemary (1952-1998)
She marks the calendar every day
now, believes we should live life
as a miracle.
No one notices the difference
in her chest.
She reminds me, smiling:
"You once said
I was flat as an ironing board."
I wonder if we should live love
as a miracle,
when your lover slips into a coat of mail
of indifference,
when his eyes only reflect an inward vision,
when your heartbeat espouses his,
the way healthy people
grow unaware
of their own pulse.
Then take every moment,
imperfect as it seems,
its dissonant echo,
transforming it into a score
the way a flock of birds improvises,
over barbed wires.
First published by Sulphur Literary Review
Face à face
After
Flying Blind by Jaclyn Alderete
When with eyes
closed, I face the mirror of desolation, I see myself
as a dove fluttering
in slow motion like a still mirage while I walk the
desert dunes,
wondering where I’d last seen the scarce palm trees still
erect by the
smothered tents where all the ones I’ve ever loved are
now buried. I search
for ashes shrouded in sand, and only see
through half-open
lids feathers the color of my hair, lidless eyes
staring at their
mirrorless reflection, lips pursed in triangular silence,
and oh, yes, how can
I omit those metallic blue shades making us all
one, woman and fowl, in love and loss?
First published by The Bitter Oleander
From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)
Desert Song
After
The Kiss by Federico Zarco
It all started when he set out in his suit and tie,
searching for a sand
rose in the desert. Wandering through dream’s
thresholds, he hoped
to unearth a treasure that would resist the drought
of feelings, each
millenary facet telling of the innumerable ways
love can be
immortalized. He must have taken a wrong turn since
all he found,
erect like a menhir, was a fossil. Was it the hip
of a dinosaur, or
rather a Titan’s, lost from times beyond memory, so
smoothed by
the scorching sun that it bore no signs? Looking
closely he saw an
open jaw with pointed teeth and a hole where an eye
once stared. He
feared he had to return empty handed in time for
his date, but
realized with terror that he had no recollection of
the path that led
him there.
First published by Danse Macabre
From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)
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