We are thrilled to say that an excerpt of Rigoberto Gonzalez's poem "La Pelona as Birdwoman" is now on Poets.org, the Academy of American Poets' website. Congratulations, Rigoberto!
Tonight
I dared to crawl
beneath the sheets
to be nailed down
around me,
waiting for my lover, she
who enters
without knocking, she
who will unstitch
my every seam
along my thigh,
my side, my armpit.
She who carves
a heart out of the heart
and drops it
down her throat.
Sweet surrender this
slow death in sleep
as I dream
the love-making
is autopsy. How else
will I be hers completely? Be her
treasure box I said:
a trove of pearls
and stones,
the ding of coins cascading
through her fingers.
The bird over her shoulder
not a parrot, but an owl
to be my mirror
when I close my eyes
and shape a moon-white
bowl out of my face
where she can wash
the hooks of her caress.
Click here to visit Poets.org and to hear Gonzalez's poem. If you want to learn more about this wonderful writer's work, visit Four Way Books.
