We burn up in this copper forest of
Dry, bitter, nettle brambles
And there on my tongue, a river of made-up questions
Did you love me? Why didn’t you? How could you
Open my sister’s Barbie? The pregnant one
Still kicking, still fastened to a plastic cord
Gulping in something that resembled life and
Your song, these lies strung together by
What you’ll never admit to unless
I strongarm you, to which you howl:
We were put here by the mirages of where we’ve been
Bent over the dresser, sprawled out on the shag carpet
As an anniversary gift given only three months in
Its firelight contouring your face
Into what I want you to be:
My father, his child, me
In a clinic
Where my bones crick, snap when
It’s a mechanism for defense, like a hood
Or a rattle to warn you
I am unsafe to hold

John Manuel Arias is a gay, Costa Rican, and Uruguayan poet back in Washington, DC after many years. He is a Canto Mundo fellow and his poetry has appeared in several literary magazines, including Sixth Finch, the Journal, and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, and his fiction has found homes in Akashic Books, the Acentos Review, and Cardinal Sins Journal. Before DC, he lived in Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts.