El Clandestino

Your tired eyes tell versions of the truth:
soldiers and flak jackets,
bloodied churches,
children who hide when helicopters come.

The mountains are solace,
though men are disappearing
from milpas and their homes--
a few return as bones
bleached white and battered
from their fight.

Your words carve dark territories
with oblique parts of speech;
you burrow deep, fearlessly,
while I discover scars and unlearn fear.
The masks you wear
and the means of your escape
are not lies or tricks
but the pirate way
you apprehend this world.

We whisper as walls grow thick
with stones and secrets,
and I crave your rebel ways
as winter does her fiercest storms
for the stillness afterward.

This kind of touch is easier
when there’s war--
our kisses like the last breath,
confidences meant to keep
the record straight.

It is quiet now.
Cold pries the edges
promising storms
from the mountains.
Your hands are certain
finding a hip, breasts,
small of my back,
long expanse of skin
burning in the lightless cell
of your room.

San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas,Mexico

Written by Holly Wren Spaulding

Back