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. |