bring it to me
I was six.
The fence was high and as I leapt
the barbs wrote perfect lines
straight across my chest.
My skin ripped easy as a rag.
I dangled there
My blood was thick and red.
That was when
I first began
to know the price
of jumping
over fences.
~~
In love with women
and men, he says they're both
the same: "I could close
my eyes and groan and groan
all night. Hands are hands.
And when they knead
my body like bread
I rise to meet the touch."
~~
Sad and old, she opened her house
to elders knocking at her door.
They promised to visit her
daily. She agreed to join
their church. She was asked
to rid herself of statues
saved on alters in her room.
She told them she was ready
to renounce. Next day, when they
returned, she told them how she'd
thrown her statues out: "I beat
them into nothing." Each day
when the elders left her home,
she took her statues from a closet
and raised them back to life.
~~
A drink in hand, she talks:
"When I have sex
my mind dissolves.
In the everything of touch,
the nothingness of language
disappears. When thought
returns, I am left with sadness
and with words. I want to live
on the silent side of speech."
~~
I stood before
the Torah. I searched
for Yahweh's name whose face
cannot be seen, whose name
cannot be said.
When I found
letters that stood
for his name, I touched them
trembling. Lines on fragile
parchment: what about them
takes us close to God?
~~
I write in English, dream
in Spanish, listen to Latin chants.
I like streets where
Chicanos make up words.
Sometimes, I shout
Italian words to wake
the morning light.
At dusk, I breathe out
fragments of Swahili.
I want to feel words
swimming in my throat
like fighting fish
that refuse to be hooked
on a line.
Fences by Benjamin Alire Saenz
---
bring your sweet love