In god’s gleaming empire, herds of triceratops
lunge up on their hind legs to somersault
around the plains. The angels lie in the sun
using straight pins to eat hollyhocks. Mostly
they just rub their bellies and hum quietly

to themselves, but the few sentences
they do utter come out as perfect poems.
Here on earth we blather constantly, and
all we say is divided between combat
and seduction. Combat: I understand you perfectly. 
Seduction: Next time don’t say so out loud.
Here the perfect poem eats its siblings

in the womb like a sand shark or a star turning
black hole, then saunters into the world
daring us to stay mad. We know most of our
universe is missing. The perfect poem knows
where it went. The perfect poem is no bigger
than a bear. Its birthday hat comes with
a black veil which prattles on and on about

comet ash and the ten thousand buds of
the tongue. Like people and crows, the
perfect poem can remember faces and hold
grudges. It keeps its promises. The perfect
poem is not gold or lead or a garden gate
locked shut or a sail slapping in a storm.
The perfect poem is its own favorite toy.

It is not a state of mind or a kind of doubt
or a good or bad habit or a flower of any
color. It will not be available to answer
questions. The perfect poem is light as dust
on a bat’s wing, lonely as a single flea.

^{translated from the Spanish by Craig Epplin}

I come from fear 
I feed you dread,

I break the bread of shivers 
among your poor.

I hear boards creaking 
scratched by some perverse animal.

I step into the dark 
I sit in the midst of its dense back.

Sitting there I ask to hear 
your cruelest of stories.

I welcome terror, that somber bull, 
I fight for your name held in his jaws.

I taste the fruit whose coarse skin 
is eaten by beasts who’ve never tasted honey.

There’s no more bitter food
than the fruit of love traversed by doubt.

Ese Toro Sombrío

Vengo del miedo. 
con el pavor te alimento,

el pan de su escalofrío lo corto 
entre tus pobres.

Oigo maderas crujir 
por un rasguño de animal perverso.

Entro en la oscuridad. 
me siento al centro de su pastoso fondo.

Desde allí te pido que me cuentes 
tu historia más cruel.

Saludo al terror, ese toro sombrío, 
me disputo tu nombre entre sus fauces.

Pruebo la fruta cuya corteza rugosa 
comen bestias que no conocen el sabor de la miel.

No hay alimento más amargo 
que un fruto del amor atravesado por la duda.

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

I love the silent hour of night, 
  For blissful dreams may then arise, 
Revealing to my charmèd sight 
  What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear, 
  That death has silenced long ago; 
And hope and rapture may appear 
  Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain 
  The form it was my bliss to see; 
And only dreams can bring again 
  The darling of my heart to me.

teach us there can be movement 
in stillness. in every broken syllable 
of traffic a syllabus that says
while you are suffering we are all
going to be unwell—let us 
instead distill business as usual 
down to the speed of a tree eating 
light. as usual, business is built 
from freight trains and warships
even when ‘it’s just coffee.’
these bridges should only connect 
the living, so when the living turn 
again toward death worship
it’s time to still the delivery of plastics 
and red meats to the galas of venture 
capital. to reject our gods if they are 
not the gods who teach us all that comes 
from dirt returns to it holy—
the holiest word i know is no. 
no more money for the endless
throat of money. no more 
syllogisms that permission
endless suffering. no more.
and on the eighth day of a holiday
meant to represent a people 
fighting occupation my teachers 
who stretch a drop of oil into a week 
of light take each other’s arms
across eight bridges of this settler colony 
singing prayers older than any country 
as the chevron burns in the distance.
o stilted vernacular of life—
o pedagogs of the godly pausing—
what mycelia spreads its speaking
limbs beneath the floors of our cities. 
the only holy land i know
is where life is. in the story 
i was taught alongside my first 
language it takes god six days 
to make the terrible world 
and on seventh day he rested
and on the eighth we blocked traffic.