Lemon tart to start,
brass manifesto for lunch,
sunlight whispering
touch me, touch me, touch me,
though glass windows.
This life is enough, this lie is enough, is,
i.e., no, no, no
who is there to trust?
i.e., no, no, no, not who, but what,
what is there to trust?
Lost body of lost boy lost by the majesty of it all.
I know my heart, your heart
may be long winded, but
the war within has ended
all of us have won
you now have permission to
lift your heads
The war within is won.
Do you see what I see?
The gold spun sun spins
while we sit on our hands
to relearn our stillness,
even our sins sit in silence,
marveling,
silenced by the lineless pink brushed sky
speaking in another language, and this is
no good time to talk, so I am listening,
no longer lifeless, but a lightweight, as in,
I curve around the dark without so much as a sound.
Just your friendly neighborhood noiseless witness
shucking the dusk, trying to steal the miracle
of any moment slow enough to reveal itself.
Do you hear what I hear?
The voice of my dreams is a soft stream of hushed light.
I break out into a peal of commotion, like I’m in concert
with the cathedral bells downtown, performing in free-fall.
Lost body of lost boy lost by the majesty of it all.
When I think translation, I hear misunderstood.
I think misunderstood, I see the invisible cost of loss
lure me back into conversations
where all I do is crawl beneath the
Lost body of a lost boy lost by the majesty of it all.
Is it so bad to be half-made of worry and honey?
Do not talk to me about half-truths when your mouth is full.
My mother texts me to say, mijo, you are blessed—
don’t ever question it, referring to the ways in which
I keep arriving, the path in front of me, paved by
the sleep I do not get, labored by the hands that
do not quiet, cannot quit, only furiously stick to the
changing script, shuffling papers like the spirit
of the hero following my fingertips, realigning lines
until my finger print is fine print, wishing for someone,
anyone brave enough to read the sentences I’ve written,
to bear witness to the way I have reshaped the invisible
back into instruments, until the first thing I hear is
the story of your bravest moment, when fear stopped
being so mysterious, when you yourself learned the
definition of ephemeral, how eternal things are unchanged facts,
how you are not ephemeral, not a disappearing act, not a
Lost body of a lost boy lost by the majesty of it all.
Don’t ever question that the first of you is the last
of something extravagant [synonym for generous]
opposite of meager, [your survival is never an understatement]
You can stop hiding from yourself
is the last prayer I whisper when I pass a mirror.
This is how I define radiate.
This may come as a surprise to some, but
you don’t have to hear your heart beat
to know you are alive. No, no, no—
I’m not trying to prove the truth to you.
I’m simply trying to say,
you don’t have to be afraid
of what the truth will do to you.
.
A POEM A DAY 