MUY CANSADO by Stephanie Lakos |
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THIS POEM IS YOUR VICTORY
by Valerie Guardiola-Minami (November, A Framework) The city I live in leaves scars on my fingers, with small fishing lines attached, as if the only spaces left to breathe are between my gills. There are hills behind my heaven and though I stopped believing in God at nine, I've invested my faith in the faces I see day to day and the voices that call me home when the sun has set. I've never second guessed the pulse of my city and the way waves roll through it, from time to time, bringing more jaded souls than I, who ask me to break myself down only so they can build me up. But he doesn't know, as he plans his quick exit, stage right, and with him takes the boxes of memories and half hearted exposures, my city has my back. Through cracks in sidewalks deeper than desert caverns, my guts are spilled and stored for a time when I am more apt to navigate. Up in sleeping cypress trees are dolls from my past, ragged and sun-drunk, rocking gently, for if they wake I would have to prepare for battle. Bitter coffee breathes through my veins and like a siren's song, its lungs bring me home. My city is my warrior, painted in blood and gilded in gold, dug up from my ancestors' gradients of miles along river bends and ghettos of hallmark moments. Dead, drying trees, with firefly lights hanging gently, curve me to sleep and protect my conscience from strangers. This street holds the lost souls of a lifetime prior to the world we know. It cradles some sullen love song written on the lips of liars and saints, grey haired goddesses with emptying hearts, brawny men holding sex over their God. My city helps me to bury my dead between fleece bed sheets and purring cats. It hears music throbbing through stucco walls and voices pouring into vacant lots and rotting Christmas trees, full to the top of rushed wrapping jobs, silent stars, crooked teeth. |
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