We picnicked in the death stench
of ripe West Indian cherries;
the long eared fox, his Catalina swimsuit
princess and me, the occasional need for
a secret gesture—a hand full
of blind seeds—yes for yeses.
She’d fall asleep on thin sand covered
in suntan lotion. I’d watch you try
to woo her with your boa, yet it was me
whose tinder cage you’d lit.
I pretended to be the windshield wiper
blowing out the flame in your large green eyes.
Yes, I wanted you horizontal,
our heads in the interior of mirrors
escaping down cobblestone alleys
full of heavy sculpted women diminishing
our perceptions, borrowing light from the Big Dipper.
But when your eyes singed the air between us
she’d awaken and strain my lungs
through a conical sieve.
Your lips would parch and bleed.
We dropped her off at the guesthouse.
I wheeled silence the rest of the way home,
trying to avoid the ruts full of anger.
------
To the Zookeeper on the Hudson
When I was ten a pedophile
covered my naked body
with leaves and spider webs,
then left me for dead and oh,
I was so sick.
Fifty years later your spidery jaws,
and spineless back entered my bible
and boarded my ark like a baboon
courting the tree of knowledge
with its bare ass clambering around
like a deformed cunt on the long coastal
line of insincerity and oh, how you
made me laugh. Knowing: is how to live
standing in the nude on the porticos,
the rotundas of my courtyard
watching you clean the manure
in the Hudson, barren mother
of an adopted albino blank face Apollo,
heavy old cow with the dull stars.
The vowels of your last name fall
like an empty echo to the least
of all my canyons.
Sergio A. Ortiz is an educator, poet, and photographer. He has a B.A. in English literature, and a M.A. in philosophy. His photographs have been published or are forthcoming in: W5RAn.com, The Neglected Ratio, and The Monongahela Review. He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: The Battered Suitcase, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), WTF PWM, The 13th Warrior Review, Dark Lady Poetry, and Writers’ Bloc. Flutter Press published his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk (2009). Ronin Press will publish his second chapbook: Topography of a Desire, due out in May.