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.