scar

noun

1. my body shudders at the thought of laying itself bare to another stranger

2. I hate when I’m asked where I come from. What do you want me to say? I come from the beaten and bruised, broken hearts and empty promises. From the midnight tv screen, hiding under the covers, watching as those maricones, culeros, puercos transform into beautiful woman before my eyes. I'm one of the puercos too, my father knows, my mother knows.

3. make the first incision along the sternum, large enough to allow your calloused hands passage into these crimson walls. carefully, reach inside and remove the faintly fluttering beast from its cage of bones. feel as the diseased flesh begins to heal under your touch. they say the heart can recognize when it has found its way back home.

4. it is your blood that runs through my veins, your whispering breath that flows through my lungs, my thoughts of you consume me.

Pobres poetas a quienes la vida y la muerte
persiguieron con la misma tenacidad sombría
y luego son cubiertos por impasible pompa
entregados al rito y al diente funerario.

Ellos -oscuros como piedrecitas- ahora
detrás de los caballos arrogantes, tendidos
van, gobernados al fin por los intrusos,
entre los edecanes, a dormir sin silencio.

Antes y ya seguros de que está muerto el muerto
hacen de las exequias un festín miserable
con pavos, puercos y otros oradores.

Acecharon su muerte y entonces la ofendieron:
sólo porque su boca está cerrada
y ya no puede contestar su canto.