"On Speaking to the Dead"

On Speaking to the Dead



Did you love them enough?
Did you see the limned quartz
of their eyes? Are they in
their heavy beds? Is the sleeping
beast you call your heart
alive? They will eat
the night. They will burrow
out with spittle and tell tales
in twitching sockets. It will last
as long as paper or the cum
cry of our living. Guilt.
It's like this: an oratory
of ants begins on the crested
graves. The dutiful
survive with grace, holding
granite in their weighty
mandibles. Lined like ants,
the red and black surmise,
orderly, filed, and eat
the heart that ails them.



c 1991 Lorna Dee Cervantes

From the Cables of Genocide: Poems On Love and Hunger

Arte Publico Press