by Karla Cordero
i watch slasher movies but hate the sight of real blood leave the body
i panic on planes & think of ways the machine or sky
will betray me i read books in fear to evaporate
out of this world without seeing its soft hands
i ask siri how long a human can live without food she says: 20 days
i’m 32 & i feed the backyard lizard houseflies
cuz i know what it means to be a small thing empty with hunger
simmering in the boil of june in my car i keep matches & water
for the apocalypse i ask siri if death hurts
she says: depends today i remind my fragile father to walk careful
& he slams his foot on a corner wall his toe nail bent back like a door hinge
an entrance open for no one to nowhere i ask siri how long a daughter can live
without her father she says: there’s a crisis in america
my father’s broken brown flesh waves like a stiff flag & i think about skin
& another unjust dying & perhaps heaven needs all the help it can get
to send a winged-saint to convince: the hand the gun the trigger
to write a different story i don’t know where i’ll be buried
below the earth where i was raised or below the earth that questions my right
to own a bit of freedom i guess i’m writing this poem
to understand where our bones sink to after the last spill of breath
perhaps like this poem born when the first line crawls across the page
then a small funeral when the last word sits like a headstone
i promise you turn the page
& witness a resurrection
Last updated March 22, 2023