Wish Bone

“The feminine in my soul will vibrate,
as inside a cathedral in mourning.”
- Cesar Vallejo, tr. Clayton Eshleman

You will not remember that dream
that fathered you-- drew your hands

towards my bones to shape a blank
for your own solidified wish.

The bone, with which you reenacted
your nightmare, could never crack:

the rib, in which you wished yourself
whole, was never realized, but was a fossil

from the future-- a late reminder
of the pain that will outlast your dream.

Swim

If the Sirens’ song could surface from
its own pregnant silence, it would say Swim.

Stoning

I walked around your figure, holding in
my hand the rock to reprimand you with,
and in that ancient stone, that monolith,
found a Rosetta for our separate pain:
it broke your jaw-- you never spoke again.
The blood you bled for me had stopped your breath
and filled your mouth completely, so in both
of us the tongues remained as mute as stone.

I come back to your image in my head
among the ruins of my mind, in which
I find you with a scientist’s surprise;
your face has turned to fossil: I can’t rid
the trace of you from this past, nor detach
your figure from the rock in which it lies.

Caesura

Your body didn’t stagger in that determined
lunge towards water but fell seamlessly
it seems fond of the waves that moved it
farther and farther away from me

There your face sank consolatory
as an anchor assuring stability
for the tired breathless swimmer
as if drowning was the only condition

Twin lover and sibling with whom I drown
in this precise water each night I come back
to this shore to convince myself you are
here repeating my own unmovable grief
I make revisions of our own tragedy
including caesuras for you to breathe

Ghazal

I am calling your bones back
with your fugitive face

through nocturnal cityscapes
where the moon is a novelty

I am calling your name back
through the loudspeaker

saying Goodbye goodbye
over aisles of bent worshippers

Damaged goods Send them back
The change will do you good

You the prototype of beauty
posing for second drafts

You the ape in uniform letting
scientists sit on your lap

You the cut of meat dubbed
Survivor behind the glass