jose angel araguz

GHAZAL ON HEMINGWAY AND BIRDS

waiting for the bus is a purgatory in itself,
wind biting at my skin and wounding cold

february and i cannot believe the sky can hold
so many birds and not choke out feathers for rain

hemingway had pomplona and the bulls; i am corpus christi
and birds on powerlines - stitches on a grey face

the sky swells like a bruise over me and my feet
cannot stop kicking at concrete that refuses to laugh

falling into time with my heart, i kick to keep warm
these bones and muscles; i am being judged by black feathered fists

one by one, fears and secrets smoke from my lips,
breath hovering and fading, failing to shadow my face

i am hiding my hands and hoping for stillness;
i am pacing in my blood - the birds want me to run

it is every morning, 6am and they shit and laugh
their machine gun chat, cuts of sound swarming

i am only the archive of this dawn; when i cough,
birds scatter from the wires like buckshot.

jose angel araguz has had work published in The Windward Review, Glyph, The Bloomshen Records, and A, with work forthcoming in Poetry Motel. He lives in Corpus Christi, Texas.