Tally
By Yago S. Cura
After you were corralled in Brega,
before they transferred you to Tripoli,
Berlin starts teething hard; I mean I can hear
his teeth coming in: sounds like slack getting waxed.
Meanwhile, several other journos have disappeared,
and some have recently been released, the whole
thing is a mess of nerves, a hive of manners colliding
with a thick oak trunk. So, I’m not sleeping as I imagine
you’re not sleeping, so possibly there is some telekinesis
we might share, except I can’t find sleep, whereas
you’re obstructed from sleep as a way to standardize
or control the exhalation of your incarceration.
Teeth: funny conspirators, take brunt to flower,
but easily wilt away in the maw, as when in dreams
you chew your teeth, the sensation not unlike gargling pebbles.
Then, I wake up at night and make homeopathic concoction
and Berlin’s mother, Panda, rubs his gums until he hushes
up and whimpers to sleep, so then I am up eyeing ribald
contraptions, flashing numbers, puro distracción
that’s soothing nonetheless, soothing longitudinal duress.
Yago S. Cura’s poems have appeared in Lungfull!, LIT, Exquisite Corpse, PALABRA, Skanky Possum, Versal, 2nd Avenue, New Orleans Review, Tidal Basin Review, U.S. Latino Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, La Fovea and COMBO.
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