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Despair is not a kitchen
where you can sit with friends
and bullshit about work,
fry pork chops or fork enchiladas
into sparrows. Here you can’t
flip through absurdity as it is done
when reading the newspaper.
Here you can’t put a piece of bread
in your mouth and not feel hungry.
Here you will not even notice
your mother’s ghost
urging you to eat
everything on your plate.
A toe nail inside
her purse,
withdrawn from the rakes
and the hairspray,
poking out of darkness
like the secret that it is,
suffocating under lipstick
and bread crumbs,
epileptic underneath the butchered
body of a dead rose.
She must’ve loved him
for her to keep it for so long
like a third lung
we refuse to deracinate
for fear of becoming
less human.
About Silence
I never asked her how she got the scar on her left arm
because I was afraid she would tell me:
“My lover cut me with his hunting knife,”
or
“I got this as I tried getting away from my father
when he tried to rape me.”
So,
I touched it without asking
about its origin,
kissed it unafraid of scraping it
off the skin.
Suddenly
you lifted
the world
off your
shoulders
and found
new territory
to explore
suffering
stepped into
a new place
where cunning
is no longer
necessary
inside yourself
is where we
always find
each other.
Octavio Quintanilla is from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.
His poetry has recently appeared in "Cranky," "BorderSenses," "Main Channel Voices," and other
print journals. It is forthcoming in "Freshwater," "HeartLodge," and will be anthologized in "Heal"
(Clique Calm Books). His work can also be found online at "Lily," "Banyan Review,” Writers Against War,”
and "Dicey Brown." It is forthcoming in "The Rose & Thorn." He has finished a novel tentatively
titled "This Is The Life" and will soon begin looking for a publisher.
Email: Octavio Quintanilla
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