Arlene Biala ekphrastic poem based on Guillermo Galindo's "Angel Exterminador" and Wim Wenders' film "Wings of Desire" she raced her little brothers to the top of the rainbow painted carnival slide the one she had been dreaming of all week feet clanking up the metal staircase rising in the middle of the desert town a mirage of fantastic colors, strange music and dust out of breath at the landing, she twirls in the four directions to the south: her abuelita's hands reaching out to her, cuidate mija watch your step, watch your step to the east, her mother's song: sing your way home, at the end of the day, sing your way home, cast your troubles away, smile every mile, it will lighten your load, it will shorten your road, if you sing your way home to the west, her oldest brother on a fishing boat, and to the north, the memory of her father's thirst in the melt zone never turn your back to the sea, he would say. the sea, the sandstorm, the blast of la migra, hail of bullets and the slide is lifted in a horrendous crash, twister of dreams, knocked the wind out of him, he is broken and bent without the name his ancestors gave him gutted like a fish, scales scraped off until the rust, the rust of his skin is gone and delicate flesh and the scorching sun have textured him a new name: angel. angel. noose of drag chain falls to the ground and the wind beats the corrugated lies out of the body, singing fly home my sweet angel, fly home through the sky . . . when the child was child she took a deep breath, grabbed the rough edges of burlap and let go. her body shooting like a bullet through border lies, blasting through impenetrable walls, her angels watching her fly. Originally published in More Good Talk: Poems from the Poets Laureate of Santa Clara County, July 2017.
|
