James Cervantes

Seasonal

Sweet work in front of a mirror,

all the world behind in terror.

Neat work in thinnest shadow,

fall in the north, spring in the south.

Horses and jeeps, mired in snow,

balk or stall. Somewhere, a mouth

nurses open to create surprise,

clock in death a second time, lift

an eyelid. Harmless flirting eyes

summer in Puerto Rico, then shift.

Plan nothing, she thinks. Funereal

winter holds, an eye and window

frosted over. A blind sky's missile

landed here, a new season's show.

***

Hysterics

  

Clothed in night, the pale hands

keep the spittle-stippled

pages down from fan's updraft

afternoon's heated air

windows open as in church

pew-scent, eau de cement

"fuck" issuing forth

chained, linked

not to delicate tissue

but in and out of discourse

the catalogue-clothed

cringe, half-rising

genuflecting code

of each other, blanched

oval or axe-faced poet

loving face looking down

on luminous pages

splayed out hands

plasma rising white as teeth.

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