Steven Sanchez
Cognate

His condom rips.

 

No and Stop molt

            in my throat

                        my Adam’s apple

            a wing

                        beating,           

            clipped.

 

                                    Fog billows inside my body

                                    like the San Joaquin Valley –

 

it disseminates

            through orchards, seeps

                        through limbs,

                                    crystallizes boughs

            into chandeliers

            bearing frostbitten fruit –

 

it turns me apparition

            like Gabriel to Mary:

 

                        The holy ghost shall come upon thee –

                                                God’s anointed

                                                            secretion, phantom

                                                                        assailant, his sacred

                                    alibi of bruises

            around my neck.

 

                        Who will believe me?

                                    He spits

 

            my name: S ---

                        from Hebrew S ---,

                                    from Latin S ---:

 

wreath,

            laurel,

                        crown

 

of thorns upon the bastard’s head.

 

 

 

 
Found In Volume 48, No. 02
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  • Sanchez
Steven Sanchez
About the Author

Steven Sanchez is the author of Phantom Tongue (Sundress Press, 2018). He is also the author of two chapbooks: To My Body (Glass Poetry Press, 2016) and Photographs of Our Shadows (Agape Editions, 2017). This poem was chosen by Ruben Quesada as the winner of the inaugural Garcia Lorca Poetry Prize, awarded by the Unamuno Authors Festival.