Sergio Ortiz
Exposed
Today I am in a plot,
where I suffer
the rigors of winter.
In summer,
I burn in such a way
that sparrows won’t nest
in my hands. What hurts
the most is to lower my head
and read the plaque:
‹‹ Naked Woman ››
Like so many others,
I’m not even a name you remember.
Little Red Cap
On the other side
of this huge forest
the world awaits me.
It’s time
to walk the path,
although the trip
may take several years.
I hear the old voice howl,
the one that always manages
to stop me: Beside this forest,
all that awaits
is the house where you’ll die.
The Square Root of Love
If I’m told
you’re on the other side
of a bridge,
strange as it may seem,
please, what is the bridge that separates
your life from mine.
In what black hour, what rainy city,
what world without light, is that bridge
and I will cross it.
No matter the goal or the course,
or the sun, which was light and whip
of that day’s journey.
No matter the sweat, the thirst,
the clumsy tired steps.
The round trip.
Even the landscape is not important,
nor the orange earth, the green of alpines,
the turquoise sea, the gray stones
of borders and millennial defenses.
When I go to love
I have poppies on my lips
and a spark of fire in my gaze.
I wire and garner red roses.
Red, the mirror of my darkened bedroom.
When I return from love, withered,
rejected, guilty, or simply absurd,
I arrive pale, and very cold.
Pupils rolled over the top of my eyes,
white blood cells in the clouds,
a skeleton and its defeat.
But I keep coming back.
Icarus
They melt in the sun,
the wings that I stick on my memories.
Some fly to me.
Others migrate forever.
2.
Once the Penelope
myth is broken,
I’ll unleash the moon
and set sail
to build a new country,
without marriages,
without respite,
where loneliness
does not hurt.
I’ll exchange the dilly-dally
for a sea search.
3.
Behind the wall
the void
as within me there is silence
and between you and me
skin
that limit
that sea
4.
Head of woman
and sex of fish.
The heart beats
in an old tin can.
Shipwrecks leave
from eyes
that always die
because of the mouth.
But earth is your thing.
You’ve always resisted swimming.
Sergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.