Next Best Thing
Sergio A. Ortiz
Our parents were astronauts
of two extremes.
Every vacant lot
where we used to play
started boiling over, so
we grew up (in word only)
against the prognosis
of a possible plague
of perverts arriving
to snatch us.
We were unlabeled objects
on the pavement
sculpting our silhouettes
for the trap,
babbling and babbling
until we vomited
the true value of silence.
At the end of the space race
reality always exceeds fiction.
Sleepwalking Semblance
Sergio A. Ortiz
for prenatal dolls
knocking on the door
with its nose shattered hemorrhage
Fallen from the sky semblance
Hindenburg fire
rusty shadows of the last angel
Face waiting at the language gate
trojan horse
night exposure of palatine judges
Resuscitating semblance
in the garden of heavenly delights
uninterrupted looting of Rome
millions of souls reduced
to tens of thousands of beggars
The face that knows
what beds are for
will sleep forever
in its dollhouse
When Alone
Sergio A. Ortiz
Your voice, sickle echo, rebounds
off the wall. I, a thousand Argos
look at myself in your mirror skin
for a few seconds
but the slightest noise drives you away.
I see you leave through the door of the book,
the atlas ceiling, the floor board, the glass page.
You leave me without pulse
or voice, without a face, no mask like a naked man
in the middle of the Street of Stares.
You’re the one I talk to when I forge the sun
with your footsteps.
What is Said
Sergio A. Ortiz
My hands, two balls of hair
trapped in the throat of a feline ghost
My fingers, covered
by your two-week beard.
I want to be a Polaroid snapshot
of a sunset. I’ll call it: selfie # 569
while I die.
You told me your girlfriend got jealous.
She does not know that friends
can love each other
or that we tattooed death on our arms,
and we gave each other stones,
and the river took our useless haiku;
that is, the filth of the city
devoured by Godzilla.
I told you, I would paint my nails red
to hide the blood I carry on my hands
when I touch something and it breaks.
Last Truth
Sergio A. Ortiz
The wind moans
among dry grasslands.
Monster, lovely-haired creature
devours my flesh.
Born too soon vermin
bellows to god.
A specter rises, heavy
with loneliness, probing the past.
Paper castles,
deadly derechos,
you will glow in the dark.