NEW FEATHERS ANTHOLOGY
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Photo by USGS
One Thing They Didn’t Tell Us About Hope
Joel H. Vega


Storm that is left out in the open air, storm that tosses the empty birdcages
with its braid of restless winds. Tell me how do the eaves of your ribcage
carry all that weight? Your hands are heavy as two bridges spanning
the flooded lakes and the light outside is unbearable. Unripe pears
have fallen to the ground, exposing their bruised hearts. Bruising is what
our bodies are made for, and the light is bluer in the eye of that bruise.
Show me the hands veined for the needles. For every glucose drop, each chart
a form of coming apart. Our bodies scanned, mapped by radioactive light,
making us transparent. All the deep valleys in your pillows are landscapes, all 
escape routes blocked. We will walk away from this wash of blue light, 
our heads wrapped in silk scarves, our hands tied. In this tunnel of unending 
doubt we will build a house of glass. We will grow opaque, our rooftop a pointed
steeple. Tell me the pathways of pain in your meager body: a stray comet running 
long distances, a liquid sliver of ragged twilight. Drop to my palms the keys to your 
imprisonment, I’d catch all the broken shards of your unbearable silence.
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