by Steven Sanchez
Glass: A Journal of Poetry

                    Hanford, CA

Do you recall, years ago, how a flock
descended on this town, caws and shit

and black feathers inescapable, how 
their weight sagged cables into a grin 

so pointed it might snap?
We wanted to kill them all, 
                              to shoot them.

Instead, we released a single falcon
whose notched beak could pierce 

a neck. I learned, that summer, 
that ravens congregate around their dead, 

that it’s easier to chase something away
rather than live with it: a handle of vodka
 
split between me and a boy who taught me
how to remove bruises with a spoon, 

to kiss a neck softer 
with the inside of my lower lip —

the only boy who met my grandmother. 
Mijo,  is he your boyfriend?

                              He’s a nice boy
This is the last time I heard her speak.

For years, I avoided seeing her, ashamed.
For years, the aphasia set in.

I almost remember her voice’s clarity 
but the last time I heard her is so much louder: 

her eyes widened and her voice flew
from her mouth and barreled past words

I couldn’t hear, but felt
like the brush of a wing.

Perched on a power line, thousands
of volts surge between your talons.
You remember a person’s face,
if they shooed you 

                              or fed you. 
I’m sorry it took so long to return

with crackers in my pocket. Thank you 
for the pebbles and silver gum wrappers.

Your gifts glint like my grandmother’s vanity,
her favorite rings and necklace

placed on her one last time, her hair dyed
and highlighted, her face beat for the gods 

because she’d never be caught dead
barefaced in public. And I remember
                              something else:

                    she was so light when we lifted her.
                    I wondered if she was still there. 

---

Steven Sanchez is the author of Phantom Tongue (Sundress Publications, 2018), selected by Mark Doty for the Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. He is a CantoMundo fellow, Lambda Literary fellow, and completed residencies at Tin House and Civitella Ranieri. His poems appear in journals including Agni, American Poetry Review, and The Missouri Review. He currently lives in Fresno, California with his husband and their three dogs.