Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

Badlands Here we are orphans of the scientific cry strangled by the fury of acid rain. The appearance of a presidential tweet is not rapture, or change. It is an absent body. None of us surrenders that easily to an absent body. A tree frog arrives to the shade of a hollow log with not even a rumble.

Muchacho Isleño   Tenía 17. Piel cobre intenso al frente del espejo de mi abuela: chacho isleño de pelo negro. Ventana abierta, quise aspirar el aroma a sofrito. Se me cayó la toalla. Clavé las yemas de los dedos en el espejo. Para aquel entonces susurraba que no quería ser hombre. Incluso sentí que estos incipientes pechos crecían muy pesados. Pues doblaban mi espalda con todas sus demandas.

The poem is up at Two Words For If It Rains and Night Arrives If it rains and night arrives in Paris, she will sit alone at the threshold of Brahma’s  temple to watch you leave without asking you to comfort her. If it rains and night arrives in Tehran, she will think about Sita repudiated by Rama, and ask you why men  do these things knowing in advance the end. If it rains and night arrives in New York City, she will drop every piece of the night sky and walk,  free and alone, towards the dawn  she glimpsed  when you left her