this chewed up anguish;
scummy dross of a heart,
still stuck in the gumline
between wise teeth
my eyes are molten and wet
the world is glassy,
everything is consigned to fire
and i’m the center of this flame.

The meanderings of the mind,
can be distant,
measured in meters
and flaccid furlongs
so many past lives lived, inside
and out; of these
slum-like hearts
palaces were born
and we lived like foolish kings.

Sometimes,
I lie awake,
and can smell your ache,
smell the incense of your
prostration
the furnace ash
and Florida Water
congealing
under bridges of noses
pointed
like wayward compasses
spining for land and home.

There is lesson in my lips,
leven in hips made to battle
the demons; from infancy
we are taught
to serve.

He spoke and said
there are beasts of Babylon
writhing; within me
God said there is Mecca,
holy land promised,
salvation,
cities of refuge,
deluged in the arks of my skin

Dear God,
this flesh becomes my cages
this body a prison
where dreams of freedom
chastise the covenant made;
to love
as myself;

If I loved unjustly
I did not know it.

This grace you say,
is born of breath
is that of stripping pulchritude,
left for dead,
dying nights
impoverished,
to suffer a famine
where there is no need for bread.

I love the taste of your name
in my mouth; your poetry
has taken residence
communing in the cuspids
of quiet nights,
more miracle than marrow,
a slow intoxication;
but there’s no water in this wine

wholly;
this is [my] will; and testament
to the spirit,
born of madres,
loving,
without law.

cedar gourd;
men made me
into this vessel
for salt tears
with calloused hands
shaping
curves,
built for a belly of water
carried;

I cannot birth your oceans
when the seas
of these unrighteous beds
are dry.

and what of your eyes; clandestine
shrine of memory and madness; broken
iris of beauty,
refracting shades of morning; ache
like hungry heart waking; silence
stirring sweat and tear from
peaceful resting place

I wrote a love letter to the invisible man,
and I told him,
where the keys to all my closets
lie.

I told him,
I don’t care for all the shadow
and puppetry,
the perusing of my pores
in graduated cylindrical motion
entrances that saturate walls
with such effrontery,
and always leave bitter tears of stone
in my mouth.

Too conscious of the quiet;
like ghosts,
the night robbed all the blue
from this room
intrudes,
with narrowed eyes,
and talons fingering my chest bone,
tracing the shape of my desire
with outstreched palm.

So much is revealed in the heavy black,
black alleyways of my aching body,
so much silence; lies
contorted,
with only air for tears.

you crashed into my journal,
‘in the temple of my familiar’,
all juniper,
salacious and saffron,
basquine,
clad in nothing but tidal force
bearing truth seeking missile,

you must know,
you have a mouth fit for roses
and there is ancient fibonacci
sequined
in the pentameter of your spine

I sat there, Stella in hand…
you looked at me,

eyes full of religion.

releasing a tender femininity

I closed my eyes
and tasted the salt of your mouth.

Simplistic,
your clarity is a séance; to my senses,
your presence, punctuates the rain,
liberates fire like the Guajiro songs
de las montañas.

Keep your distance.

Keep performing this magic
Tell me all the secrets
tucked away for safekeeping,
and i’ll recite all the unwritten poetry you keep masterfully painted
a top your dangerous Cupid’s Bow.

All the beauty in this
richness,
this smooth recollection
of my ancestral skin,
The canvas;
the lifetimes of almond eyes,
proud lips,
and calloused hands,
flashes of strong shapely bodies
draped in emerald sari
wiping tears and dust,
freeing sky

I lost all the directions,
too focused on the moments
I tend to rupture with my honesty,
cause honestly,
my kind of love,
is out of production,
and all I got are these here poems.
This is as silent as my heart gets.

There’s no one else on this bridge.
I lost all the directions
when you failed to define
[how to] build
failed to provide the architectural plans
for what our hands were creating.
Now, I feel like a foolish craftsman
pouring water into clay.

There are confectionary stands
For words this saccharine.
These lips crave
the sharp,
sour taste of bittersweet spirit
that devours hungry mouths
like flame