Now at this crossing
I cling to the clam-chill
of your skin. Somos
cangrejos cruzando
al mar.
I wake on the morning
I look for any roadblock to stop
my leaving. You haven't woken
when I imagine our pincers
locked, one crab disengaging
from a clicking line and
disappearing into foam.
Andamos de lado pinza
a pinza y aquí en la cama
aprendemos sudar. Your forehead
gleams like a shell. See now the shoreline
extending from the edge,
the ancestral bed that sinks us
and pulls us apart?
Ahora beso una cara o un
caparazón, el corazón
ahora duro, la concha de una voz.
Your eyes are engaging, two cloud-filled openings.
SARA D. RIVERA is an interdisciplinary artist and writer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, now based in Boston. She holds a BFA in Art Studio and a BA in English from the University of New Mexico, an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Boston University, and was awarded a 2013 Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry for travel in Ireland. Her artistic and literary practice includes visual art, music, performance, genre fiction, poetry, and Spanish/English translation. Her work has been published in the Loft Anthology's "Lay Bare the Canvas: New England Poets on Art" and "The Dialogist."
Read more of Sara D. Rivera's poetry in Issue 2, Vol. 1, Spring 2015.