Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

On the Day of the Dead On the day of the dead, Pablo put on his pants one mummified foot at a time. It wasn't his fault, rain was the true culprit. Clouds followed his feet for years, poured whenever he tried to cut bread in the City of Glass. His soles cracked, sprouting roots. Julia entertained on her balcony, levitating intimate secrets. People on 42nd Street attributed her faculties to a Santero visiting her family on the day she was born. She stood tall and elegant like the mountains to the south of Black Island, Pablo's home. Her face had traces of unforgettable pain. They married. Julia, carried down the aisle by two old lovers, found the last bottle of rum hidden in the trash before the wedding. She bled life into a gutter, no one recited her verses. No one knew she was Ambassador to the Island of Poetry. Pablo was one mummified foot at a time closer to banging pots and starvation. Medicine denied, orders from th

Collective Madness Around the house the flakes fly faster, And all the berries now are gone' Birds At Winter , Thomas Harding Overexposed driftwood is what we are. Bewitched by the light, pretty little cento, eclipse enchanted with rainbows. Our childhood memories linger like pastoral triolets rolling about meadows. Luck has nothing to do with interpreting the veils with which we choose to cover our faces. Enlightenment happens after we fall. Madness comes in the form of eyes appended to blood dripping rocks when our demons fail to cross the river. Never is where we usually drink tea and endlessly suck on lemons. Smiles are inevitable when we spar with strangers. 

Silent A chorus of genuflections filtered through the kitchen ventilator and knelt beside my bed around midnight. I knew Georgina was dead. My rocking chair peeled its mahogany finish in her honor. There were loud knocks at the door. Neighbors   packing axioms, guns, crucifixes, shovels. “Hi, we were wondering about the odor?” It’s not coming from here, I’m not dead yet. Occasionally, I see apparitions of myself standing by the window, behind the shower curtain, but I still go fly fishing. Mother came to me in a dream last night, gave me the password to a house where boas reincarnate into possessed lizards catching mosquitoes on maracas. She said, everything spoken becomes water, blends. I am going to stop talking for seven years, but first let me repeat this a few more times Harmonizing the sacred          Harmonizing the sacred             Harmonizing the sacred Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus