the poem opens for me no matter. a blood-letting riot
absorb the symptoms, interpret the malady, erupt
into nummular hives & feign resolve. no more breaking
ground due to better nature. i will salt the well & wait.
i have not died for love but gnawed close enough to bone. just before the end,
i hop a quick flight to my kin across some water.
in Medellin i take a bitter cup from room to room & court stillness. i look for that
dip in my stomach even now, that low-slung feeling
of being in a valley. a mother holding a little one just under the pits
to skim tiny feet over the stillwater cool & dim
lightly troubled with intrusion but settling even softer. i practice
speaking a language that knows me even less
than the first one. i say camarones wrong & am still given a plate. i know
only a couple of hello’s, which makes me popular
with men. no better mouth than one glossed & shut. even at this age something
still daughters me. guides me out towards colored lights,
unnamable verdant fronds. beckons me to linger in a dry place. it has been so long
since something held me like this, combed my hair.
not even the wind
