Abandoned, expropriated building.
Wild grasses over
the dead dog. The araguaney
dropping blazing
yellow flowers. When asked
what I remember:
the movie theater at the lake mall
teens would hide inside
to kiss in freezing secret.
Roadside cachapas,
salty cheese, a netted
melon bowl. A truck
tipped. Gasoline.
Boiling roses
for the new year. Taking
the trash out,
running inside. Malibu taxis
dragging bumpers
to view lightning
lightening the Catatumbo.
Washing my skin
in the powerless dark.
Those songs we played
—denting pots,
bending spoons—we will not
play again.
—
Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. A graduate of the MFA program at NYU, his work appears in the Brooklyn Rail, The Yale Review, and the Best American Poetry anthology, among other publications. He has received support from Tin House, The Poetry Project, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He is Assistant Web Editor at Poets & Writers and lives in Brooklyn, New York.