The Black and the Light

The world will tell you you’re crazy,
because you listen for owls,
La Llorona and lowriders,

because you yell “Burn Him”
under fireworks, “Bravo” for Don Pasquale,
and hiss at the Melodrama.

They won’t know why you need
to dance by bandstands, or soak in cinema
under stars, margaritas on balconies,

why you crave faralitos, Las Posadas,
and piñon when it’s cold, when footsteps snap
through your turquoise fatigues.

 
They won’t understand, when all night long,
you lie between the still and the turning above,

just to take in the black and the light,
that quiet cold filled with the hunt.

They won’t get why you need
to feel stars press into your skin, and
the Milky Way flush through your veins,

why your lovers are Orion and Venus,
who soak their light on you
until they shine through.

 
They’ll think you’re crazy when you tell them
your wheel is slowing, and
that your soul is tethered to the rocks,

because you know you love the mountains
even more when they’re hidden,
and that a living heart will always be broken.

You’re the one who’s woken up
by raven wings and the sun’s rising song,
they who pull you in closer,

they who called you to a life you knew was here
when you had no reason to, no reason at all.