a poem by Roger B. Rueda
Cirilo—
not like a man admiring craft
but like someone
who had seen too many wars
disguised as gardens.
You didn’t flinch
at the lions’ mouths,
or the virgins’ marble breasts
that refused to rest.
You watched the water
splinter sunlight,
watched it spit its song
from terrace
to terrace
as though trying to outrun
its own sadness.
And I—I wanted
to tell you:
I never meant to own the ocean.
I only wanted
a part of it
to stay.
You called it a dream
bursting in water.
But I—I was a man
who had grown tired
of forgetting.
Who built a prayer
with fountains,
not because I believed
in answers,
but because I needed
movement
to mean something.
Each spout,
each hush of spray,
was a syllable
of what I couldn’t say aloud.
Each fish
traced my failures
in circles.
You said your brain swam
with them.
So did mine.
For years.
I gave it angels
not to guard,
but to grieve.
And breasts,
because I missed touch.
And lions,
because I no longer knew
how to pray
without teeth.
You saw through it all.
Saw me,
standing behind the veil
of my own design.
When you asked
if I believed brilliance
could be frozen—
I didn’t answer.
Because you knew.
Because you, too,
have tried to keep fire
inside language.
Because we are men
who’ve tasted exile,
not from country,
but from the body
we once trusted
to hold memory
without shaking.
So no, Cirilo—
I never owned the ocean.
But I pressed
my hands
to its mouth.
And it remembered me
long enough
to sing.
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