MARCELO HERNANDEZ CASTILLO
Cenzóntle
____________
because the bird flew before
there was a word
for flight
years from now
there will be a name
for what you and I are doing
I licked the mango of the sun
you blew out the flame from a match
the night was heavier
than the light it hushed
____________
the pockets of unsteady light
the bone--
the seed
inside the bone--
the echo
and its echo
and its shape
Hojas de roble folded
into dolls kneeling in prayer
____________
call it wound
call it beginning
the bird’s beak twisted
into a small circle of awe
you called it cutting apart
I called it song
164 The Paris-American
____________
because the bird flew before
there was a word
for flight
years from now
there will be a name
for what you and I are doing
I licked the mango of the sun
you blew out the flame from a match
the night was heavier
than the light it hushed
____________
the pockets of unsteady light
the bone--
the seed
inside the bone--
the echo
and its echo
and its shape
Hojas de roble folded
into dolls kneeling in prayer
____________
call it wound
call it beginning
the bird’s beak twisted
into a small circle of awe
you called it cutting apart
I called it song
164 The Paris-American
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and is a Canto Mundo fellow, a Zell post-graduate fellow and the only undocumented student to graduate from the University of Michigan’s MFA program. He’s a Pushcart nominee and has received fellowships from the Squaw Writer’s Workshop, and the Vermont Studio Center. He teaches summers as a resident artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and recent work can be found in Jubilat, New England Review, and Drunken Boat, among others. With CD Wright, his translations of the Mexican Poet Marcelo Uribe are forthcoming.