poetry
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Second Country
I. I like newness, the kind that leaves traces on the page of morning. When it calls, when it forces you to see the light— the morning glory, the moisture softening on the glass of the windowpane. The sky is bluer than blue. Let him go. II. This is an easy test. The volume of— the square root of— Don’t they need men? You remember: men make this industrial complex. I know where I am. I know where I…
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night letter to my mother
you lie to yourself // i learn late to work inside the bodyslow madness // in the end you mend // the broken partsi lieyou die working // the body gave up // and in my final act// i try to mend // the broken piecesthe mirror breaksyou walk the same dirty sidewalksbefore you were…
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the house on fire
Themes: labor, inherited, survival, desire, bilingual the house on firewe were made to stay insidethe borderline. safety is not beyond measureyou once said, as we cross the plains in smoketo head to guánica baywe must first pass the sunflower fieldsthe red bricks of ghetto living onceheld the sun,the heat was pressed into my backnowdecayfresh orange en…
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en el cafetín with my ghost body
Themes: Love // Silence // Desire // Ghosts // Queerness // Bilingual en el cafetín with my ghost bodyi ran into the graying mother by chance,sixty and unafraid on her birthday.she remembered me from work. i didn’t—already a ghost in my own body.her daughter passed drinks of the hourlike blessings.she recalled surviving men who loved…
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grayscale // when love demands
Themes: Love // Hope // Faith grayscalewhen the ocean is black, i pacethe long corridor of the summer/homea mouth stirs the room. the walls hum and light won’t sleep. the dark altersmy skin against an unyielding arm i should brace the furnace—but i stay, watching how we drumbeneath the skin, bodies riggedto learn each other…
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Senseless // Litany for the Broken Body
Themes: Love // Silence // Queerness // Queer Body // Desire // Bilingual SenselessMost people would’ve ghostedBut me?I call it love—I just wanted to worship the ignition,the firestarter who kissed like a loaded gunand left a trail across my skinlike something meant to burn.But here we are—tracing the heat your body left behind;you, reciting a…
Luis E. Santos 