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Cold Fire
by Radames Ortiz
Once again, we find
ourselves under the
anarchy of starlight
while our dreams get
caught in the tangled
dance of branches.
Drinking glasses filled
to the rim with
Bacardi & Diet Coke.
A drink to calm the
nerves, to straighten
out the crooked smiles.
You mentioned Jesus
hanging like a red lantern
in the window, like
a sparrow dead on a limb.
On the last drag of a
Camel cigarette you say
the end is near, that your
azaleas & hollyhock can
feel the cool earth dying.
Like irritated blotches of skin,
the world is all blood & nail.
It’s all to do with shadows
holding the horizon, all
to do with ghosts kneeling
in the woods. There’s no
cracking of the genetic code,
no death in the womb.
We are in the last quarter of
the down & low, where we
deny worship of dark totems
& bleed ourselves into rapture.
—for iram hernandez
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