They come looking for me
to tame them, to dampen the nerve;
Dip their bodies in a sea of gold,
chant a wordless incantation
over their darkest dreams,
and so I do.
Men thick and cool as marble
guarding the archways of sacred places—
Every bend and hollow smooth,
waiting for me.
Silent as I enter,
rigid as they’re carved,
until they break along the bed line
beneath the chisel of my breath.
Men as broad and wide
as the canals of Nayarit—
Brackish rivers meandering
through fingers of mangrove.
I cast my arms out like oars
to traverse verdant estuaries
that lie, still sleeping,
beyond the heron’s roost.
Men, like entire countries
at war with one another—
Their landscape, a firefight;
Their boundary lines, tremulous.
Wanting nothing more than
for me to conquer them at last,
to replant their trees,
rebuild their temples.
To sow a field of wildflowers
where the earth is stained in blood.