Not the selfie before the pyramid
Not the banquet where we ate and gorged
The falcons in formation above your chimney
The crime you witnessed but your testimony ignored
That lakeside stroll when sunset rays revealed her truest beauty
Maybe you held your camera but were too in awe
It never became a photo, now it’s a minor regret.
Somewhere in the head’s rear lobe
Snapshot memories keep in Kodachrome
Some are stored in black-and-white, some in sepia tone
There they fade like everything else.
Finally you are cremated
Your mind’s gallery turns ash
Then they become something to touch
Each picture a shingle on the scales
Of the wings of your moth.
Daytime Moon
sighted at 3 o’clock at this hour,
a salt cracker
by midnight, vanilla ice cream
Request to the Whale
You beast of myth, you beast of time
Your journeys though oceans are vaster than the moon flights
The barnacles of your hide are as bumpy as the decades, as coarse as history
I am unworthy to ride on your back. Explain to me one simple thing I might understand.
Share with me one chapter from your voyages. Teach to me one vowel of your language.
© César Love. All rights reserved.
Cesar Love is a Latino poet influenced by the Asian masters. A resident of San Francisco’s Mission District, he is also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He is the author of Birthright and While Bees Sleep. cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com
