Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Last Judgment  I tried to feel  my heart yet there was nothing there except row  upon row of saints  warming themselves in the sunlight  of a winter morning.   They were silent and in eternal  isolation.

March 30 I run to the door hopeful that he is there but my brown eyes swim with terror as I open the door to the gunk of all my yesterdays rotting in the hollow of my skull. I sit at the kitchen table nibbling on the bonbon of sin until I cast off my identity musing on the scent of gardenias, lost in a subtle metaphor of blood festering in a crypt.

Grown Apart She’s my sister, but we’ve grown apart. Her feathers have turned a coral colour, and her bill is blue.  She’s not easy, the moon gets caught in her jittery nervous system. She is very still, at her center she is still, very still with misunderstanding.

The Game of Solitaire   Don’t you just wish you had written that obituary? Time: a waterfall of love and peace splashing on the reef of life.   These were his thoughts as they placed the flowers on the casket.  Could they tell he had already found another body to keep  him warm  in the winter of his life? There is no shame in not wanting to live without the company of a woman. But shouldn’t there be a time to think about the loss. Men are different in that respect, they fear the cold solitude of the morning after.

Our Sister of the Swamps She brushes her hair and climbs into the car pig-headed about the weekend dance even when she knows every sleaze in town will be there pitching his fork for a piece of her ass she’s not familiar with love but is adamant about finding out Our sister of the swamps has a way with men she stuffs her bra with tissue and puts on the lavender hot-pants She’s going to have a ball even if it is with some confused dyke that doesn’t care what it is she’s got between her legs swamp fever will do you in every time She’s hopeful she won’t get asked out by some self-absorbed idiot that never reads although she’s ready with the eye-liner just in case, she needs to go punk and scare somebody off

Body Parts pristine alphabets and cows moo as they jump over the moon to his back yard come the bodiless to barter vision endlessly the disfigured wait in the dark to see the results before they also bargain it’s never easy to get the right fit flesh doesn’t attach well enough to be considered art

Looking Back He broke into our room and laid on my bed as if he were dead, bald angel blocking and shaping the fragile light.  I said: gently , then he clambered on top of me.  Disoriented by the softness of his lips and the mental image of his empty bed, I couldn’t believe this was happening, so I started to talk.  That did not please him. He got up and buried himself in his bed.  I had made him uncomfortable. Perhaps, he thought I was afraid he’d have an epileptic attack .  My world pyramided with grape baskets leaning like the sea to my hands.

Shading the Dark The whirr of blood sucking bats tempers the evening with ebony air I’ve wondered about you across those white stones, dressed in black, coat and boots.  Your dark hair stirred by a vortex of wind, your eyes piercing my chest until I can hardly breathe.  My hands extended to capture the chill of your pale face. I thought the season had turned its back on me and I could hear the gulls cry as we strolled through red-mottled relics.  I thought you were bigger than life, but now I realize you were a peasant with nothing more than good fortune, and the knowledge of mimicry. 

To the artist whose hands move more priestly than a priest through inane worlds of cherubs and clouds; to the three net-menders sitting in the dominoes of their doorways, dressed in black— everyone mourns someone. Today is my birthday and I no longer care   for this old love of death, the cold angel whose destruction                   I learned to accept early in life.

a broken vase for my birthday midnight moon 私の誕生日の真夜中の月のために壊れた花瓶

Amor Perdido te recuerdo en el tránsito nocturno   vestido de amapola amarilla tímido— cual manatí perdido     me asombró por mi falta de insistencia 

Forever I watch the moon disappear just before dawn. I am heavy with sleep but find it difficult to lie down. Church bells remind me of broken vases and a kiss that lasted a lifetime.

Youth Those were the days of laughter; the days of brunch and wine when the sun’s brilliance was free of jealousy.  They were the delight of my own disappointed life. I walked the shores of the ancient night with a full set of hair and all my muscles tight.