And surfaced a flame in the dark elsewhere
of one remembered form: just one,
suppose it the flesh of unspecified man
a mouth down deeper between my legs
his heavy beard in the beginning
against these wet thighs our bodies scribbled
in signs to draw the grey curtain of steam back
by which we found ourselves surrounded
sound of water off the tile (or on this sheet
of paper stammering) by which we came to nestle
a will from which the colors rose resilient
sparks of orange over the waves of trickled
hair on chest and forearm light
green to trace the conduits formed by
vein of biceps and prick the pink
ridges of his brown nipples in brackets raised
this tongue in blue translucent embers
to emanate where a moon of fingers along
the dark red notch of earth is a field
over which armies raged with catapults of burning
stones until all was left there smoldering below.
Roberto Tejada, “Genesis: The Resilient Colors” from Mirrors for Gold. Copyright © 2006 by Roberto Tejada. Reprinted by permission of Krupskaya.
Source:
Mirrors for Gold (Krupskaya, 2006)
An art historian, curator, and editor specializing in Latino and Latin American art, Roberto Tejada was born in Los Angeles. He earned a BA in comparative literature from New York University and a PhD in interdisciplinary media studies from the English Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Gift & Verdict (1999) and Amulet Anatomy (2001) as well as the full-length . . .
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