by C.T. Salazar

you’re still here	opal in the creek begging
by and by 	 I reach across (to 
				                         /
					                       almost touch you)

              here’s history but bear with me, it’s bloody     God said
              be light    + the crocus the honeysuckle the callalily   we

used our hands for the worst of it	 we fell into a pile
of brown leaves that was mostly moths	+ collected

		rainwater in copper-bottomed pots  this
		isn’t the history I mentioned 		this
	
is rain washing into the radio, a voice hitting static

like birds flying into laundry   I put my ear 
to your chest  clouds 
                                        like rams   you undo the evening

with your hands alone		you don’t have to apologize
+ light wept down      I know even if you stay,

a lonely pink sky would wound us so




____

C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. He’s the author of Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking, forthcoming from Acre Books in 2022. He’s the 2020 recipient of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in poetry. His poems have appeared in The Rumpus, Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, 32 Poems, and elsewhere.