Fantasma

You were a ghost against my skin,
moving against me,
moving through me.
The cold touch of one fingertip.
The print it left on my neck
in ice.
A brand.
You were here.

Escondite

I felt everything,
but I felt it alone.
Fury
and sorrow,
and a sweet desperation
which contorted my face
and swelled my soul.

It ended in secret.
I rode the wave back to shore
and lay in the sand
and the sky cooled.

There was quiet.
It might never have happened at all.
Dust will fill the hole it left;
And I will feel it still.

Medidado

There’s magic in the way
only half your face smiles:
One eye,
one corner of your lips.
One half of your forehead softens;
One half of the world lightens.

The cage in your chest
which rattles so softly
these days,
Forgives.
Rests.

You breathe.
And you smile.
And I love you.

Peligro

The lonely,
crowded,
world:
Gaze downcast.

Forbid contamination
from the eye of a stranger.
If you can’t see them they aren’t breathing.
There is no monster under the bed
until you look.

A rush to leave this cleansing air;
lest it remind you
You are the toxin.

 

Amenazada

In a place we don’t belong
Foundations forged of the lies
we believed.

We built a maze,
and lost the route.
We scratched at the walls
until our flesh wore away
and we bared our bones.

But bones were not enough.
Flesh not enough.
The ocean in your eyes ebbed:
A tide which never returned.

And your hands healed;
And you found your way;
And I sat in our lies
And longed for the water.

Zorro (II)

This cold pane of glass
an inch from my nose;
It tastes like it smells,
you know.
Pure and cold
as a November moon.

The fox scuffs a bottle along the concrete.
Echoes.
Echoes off the walls;
The branches;
The dormant cars;
The wind which blows at a sigh of a snore.

The fox stops.
Smells the air.
Takes a breath;
Lungs cold.

Envy on my cool tongue.
Lust in my eyes.
The forbidden night.
The scent of cold glass.

Zorro

Lit by nothing but stars;
pulled awake
by the gravity of the moon.

Ignorant of the gloating flowers in their verges;
Deaf to the gossiping pigeon on her nest.

Attentive instead
to the fox as it saunters,
panting lightly,
padding softly.

Together we explore the night;
Our mutual home;
Separated by the scent of cold glass.