Cage

1970 –

In a world of loss
     gratitude is what
          I demand for keeping
     precious catch
within my reach.
     No one despises
          the shepherd for
     collecting his flock.
No one accuses
     the watchman of
          making a captive
     of his charge.
I’m like a holster,
     or sheath, all function
          and no fury. Don’t
     you worry as I
swallow you whole. Those
     ulcers in my gut
          are only windows,
     the stoma punched
in my throat is just
     a keyhole. Don’t be shy.
          Hand me the rattle
     of your aching heart
and I’ll cradle you,
     bird with broken wing.
          Let me love you. I
     will hold your brittle
bones together. I’ll
     unclasp your beak
         so you can sing.
     It’s a world of always
leaving but here
     you can always stay.

Rigoberto Gonzalez — Photo credit: Marion Ettlinger

Rigoberto González was born in Bakersfield, California, on July 18, 1970, but lived in Michoacán, Mexico, until the age of ten. The son of migrant farm workers, González traveled between the United States and Mexico for much of his childhood. He earned a degree in humanities and social sciences interdisciplinary studies from the University of California, Riverside, and an MFA from Arizona State University in Tempe.

About Rigoberto González

Themes

About this Poem

“This is the closest I could get to the stark reality of children separated from their families and kept in cages. I tried other ways into the subject, but it always rang false, especially the versions I tried writing in the point of view of a child. I realized that these children have their own voices. But we are not listening. So I wrote a persona poem in which the villain tries to obscure the travesty of incarceration of minors with seductive, gas-lighting language.”
—Rigoberto González

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from “Apocalipsixtlán” [12. A Second Crack in the Earth]

The pond of bones begins to rattle. Even Mother’s
    throne collapses, her body disassembles. The ground
turns to quicksand as it trembles and swallows
    every socket, every thorn, every pebble. In a single
gulp the bed beneath the Smaller Ones swirls down
    a funnel. The earth has groaned like this before.
We know what to expect though it doesn’t help
    us guess which plate will lift its crust and which
will crumble. The dust is blinding. It separates us
    as we scramble. Unknowingly, some of us run

Rigoberto González

2019

from “Apocalipsixtlán” [5. Signs of the End of the World]

The right path. The phrase echoes in our heads
     as we travel west, away from the crack in the earth.
There is no way around it. Some say it connects
     Tierra del Fuego to the North Pole and cuts deep
down to the core—a wound that lets the heat escape
     each minute of the day. When all of the Américas

Rigoberto González

2019

from “A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons” [5. Portrait of a Father After His Son’s Memorial Service]

There’s a man who sits on a bench
waiting for a train, though the trains
arrive and depart and the man remains
seated, the heaviness of resignation on

his face. As evening falls the light flickers
awake in the waiting room and a moth
begins to flutter in and out of sight
until it rests finally on the white bulb

above his head. All things come to calm
this way—even the trains. The cycles
of grinding metal stretch out into yawns—
each iron wheel a flower folding its petals in.

Rigoberto González

2019

Poems

Cage

More by this poet

from “Apocalipsixtlán” [12. A Second Crack in the Earth]

from “Apocalipsixtlán” [5. Signs of the End of the World]

from “A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons” [5. Portrait of a Father After His Son’s Memorial Service]

Poems

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Cage

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