I learned to cleave through the whirlwinds on his back
—unclaimed lacerations,
bullet holes gaping
on forsaken walls. Mercy
tattoos. He blew ships
of crystal meth in my ear—
the sea, a nightmare
in a gunmetal gown. He said
My ass so tight baby—a murmur
of splinters
half-birthed on bruised muscle.
On his shaved head,
black horses
in a long funeral procession of ashes.
& from his shoulders,
names in calligraphy
of the missing,
the dead
shoveling their pulperías
from the ground,
where their sons
& daughters still dream
of having mouths. I hung
my coniferous body
from his nipple rings,
ducking the coral snake
coiling
down his gravel chest—
a girl with the tail of a dragon
sucking on a headless girl on his bicep,
mouthing
Corre cabrón.
Corre—
a prisoner, like me, to a body
our mothers have entered
inside garbage bags, old jokes—
the dirt under
his nails, fertile.
On his thighs, yucca petals. In his shade,
a communion of spare sweat.
If I licked the word SUR on his neck,
I found the ala.
If I licked NORTE
on the scruff of his neck,
a juncture where feathers
became carnations.
Again & again he pressed
his lit cigarette on my knees & asked
to guess where his first scar
would emerge—
how the headmasters teach us brown boys
to shed our inheritance,
drink from the current wine.
Once, while the rosary
beads about my neck
ripened like lesions,
he ripped my tongue,
spat out a lizard.
That night I bled
in his hands, & from his hands
a seagull cawed
at the wrong bestial father.
Armpit: torn banner. Love:
desert gnats.
Whenever I’ve spilled deliverance
down the shallow throats
of unbelievers,
I’ve meant for loss
to be drunk. For thumbs to frame new eyes.
The wood storks
return to their swamps
& our groins
praise all that’s been banished.
Originally appeared in Assaracus
Roy G. Guzmán was born in Honduras and raised in Miami, Florida. They are currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, where they also received an MFA in creative writing. Roy is a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Their debut collection will be published by Graywolf Press in 2020. Website: roygguzman.com. Twitter: @dreamingauze.
