Journey to the Void

Mother Washes the Clothes on a Photograph

I Used to Believe in the Three Wise Men

Conservation Instinct

Journey to the Void
Just  a few lights ago I changed my face,
I, who blindly believed in brightness
while watching the sky pass by my window.
Now I run from one wall to the other,
deeply breathe in to get to the end
but I lack strength
and stay at the mercy of my consciousness.
Without firm direction I walk inside myself,
with my hallucination I feed the walls
and feel the collapse of the days on my body
as heavy as a knock out.
My door is besieged;
I put signs here and there but nobody draws attention.
I can only see how,
between one light and another, I get lost.

Mother Washes the Clothes on a Photograph

So white were my mother’s clothes
that tears could stain them.
She used to spend day and night by the tray
watching her fingers bleed
while water was washing her misfortune
through her breast.
My mother used to starch and spray the clothes
before ironing them in the quietest corner of the house,
near the music and the radio novels,
through which she used to see the world pass by
far from her pains and furies.
When she was gone, the clothes weren’t white anymore,
and father, my brother and I lost orientation inside the house
like blind people do.
Even now, it’s troublesome for us to find ourselves,
although a long time has passed, and my mother
keeps on catching our sight from an old photograph,
follows our steps with her eyes.

I Used to Believe in the Three Wise Men

I never had a plane as a child,
nor did the three wise men ever come to my bedroom;
my shoes were quiet by my bed.
When I opened my eyes in the very early morning,
there was my letter without a sign or a print;
my brother was sleeping, dreaming maybe,
that he was polishing his new skates.
The only thing I needed by that time
was to breathe pure air
so that I could escape the drama
that didn’t let us sleep through the night.
When we were inventing happiness,
writing down our dreams on white papers,
my mother was saying the Lord’s Prayer
while searching her chest in the mirror,
trying to find where the uncommon
pain was coming from.
The mirror knew nothing about her claims:
distant, like other people’s birthday parties.
That morning nobody was concerned
about a small letter having to wait
for another January to be read.
I have wished so much for a plane
that I have lost the urge for flying over the snow.
Now I just feel the snow over my body, under my body, inside my body;
that everlasting snow where nobody can make a home.

Conservation Instinct

You feed yourself with your homeland
the same way one person sucks a finger stuck with aloes;
you walk along the streets with the fear of not appeasing your hunger
and see they are watching over you.
You cannot come back home with orphaned hands because you’re being anticipated
by a swarm and the dogs who used to belong to nobody.
You set the table and enjoy seeing the tongues dancing
as if they were following the rhythm of a song
being played by an orchestra and you conducting it.
This way you can believe that Beethoven’s madness was true while in ecstasy.
There are red apples dying in somebody else’s yard
where a thick snow swallows the letters before coming into words
and we can’t reach but the eyes looking here and there on the streets
trying to bring home a piece of life for today,
tomorrow is another day, distant like the end of the universe.
In the act of searching you may not watch your step
and you may become itchy, that itch you can’t hide
when you are too slow to heal the skin you don’t have anymore.

• poetry by Domingo Alfonso
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• poetry by Yanelys Encinosa Cabrera
• poetry by Alberto Peraza Ceballos
• poetry by Maria Liliana Celorrio
• poetry by Felix Contreras
• art by Wally Gilbert
• poetry by Georgina Herrera
• poetry by Karel Leyva
• poetry by Robert Manzano
• poetry by Roberto Méndez Martínez
• poetry by Jamila Medina
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• Frogpondia