/ + (soy yo autoretrato) – / [redux]

I am the day’s encryption /
I am nylon whir on fetid skronk /
I am must + disequilibrium /
I am growth opportunity /
I am terror in the grass /
I am green bastion in silence /
I am the shock of slice before
sanguinary /
I am bloodlust /
I am carnivore.
I am chaos +
confusion.
I am /
eye.

What I’m Reading:

As they slept-the bikers and the cops, Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty,
the millionaire on his magic pillow-adolescents from Guatemala scalded
the killing floors at the slaughterhouse in Grand Island, Nebraska, their hoses
like snakes spewing rivers that bubbled in the steam. Around them, the blades
of skull splitters and bone saws waited for their fingers to slip, fangs lurking
in the murk of early morning, in the daze behind the goggles on the faces
of adolescents from Guatemala, sleeping the next day at Walnut Middle School,
shaken awake by teachers who spotted the acid burns on their hands.

— Martin Espada / “The Snake” / Jailbreak of Sparrows