"Love of My Flesh, Living Death"

By Lorna Dee Cervantes
 

after García Lorca

Once I wasn’t always so plain.

I was strewn feathers on a cross

of dune, an expanse of ocean

at my feet, garlands of gulls.

   Sirens and gulls. They couldn’t tame you.

You know as well as they: to be

a dove is to bear the falcon

at your breast, your nights, your seas.

   My fear is simple, heart-faced

above a flare of etchings, a lineage

in letters, my sudden stare. It’s you.

   It’s you! sang the heart upon its mantel

pelvis. Blush of my breath, catch

of my see—beautiful bird—It’s you.

"'Love of My Flesh, Living Death'" by Lorna Dee Cervantes, from From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger.