color me black with grackle feathers / after the sunset showers of August / when I’m dusting the smell of fresh bread
Poetry by Elidio la Torre Lagares
color me black with grackle feathers
after the sunset showers of August
when I’m dusting the smell of fresh bread
creeping in from the bakery two
blocks down and the cars seem
to have disappeared from the black
wet street that leads the way out
and the way in to the town
I want wings and desire it’s always
present perfect in humble hops over
the puddles that open like eyes
on the back of a frog
the air is full of the wet smell
of dampened gardens after the rain
and it burdens me blue like Crayola
birds that dapple in memory
the world spins on my finger tips
and I suspect there won’t be
a silence big enough to basket
the shadow child running after me
Elidio La Torre Lagares is the author of the newly released collection, Wonderful Wasteland and other natural disasters: Poems (University Press of Kentucky 2019), which is part of the New Poetry and Prose Series sponsored by Centre College. Having earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso, Elidio now teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras’ Department of Comparative Literature. His work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including CENTRO Journal, Azahares, Sargasso, Acentos Review, Nagari, Malpaís Review, and Ariel Chart. Find Elidio at https://www.elidiolatorrelagares.com/ and follow him on Twitter at @elidiolatorre