Myth of the Open Wound

I turned up at the gate

in a souvenir basket

flattened bills in my back pocket,

a slap on my left wrist.

The myth

that would be me.

The truth was a child-like greed for greener backyards

tall fences and water gun fights.

But running does nothing

when a countryman

boulders you naked

into the concrete,

makes you kiss the dead

land goodbye,

and you're infinite.

The myth

is his boot on my ribs.

I'm not ashamed

to feed off this smoke,

to last a hundred years,

making my exit

from the gash of a bullet.

I'm an escapist.

I hold a steel likeness

between my teeth. The song of mothers,

the wings of a fat mosquito

scrapping against my lungs

like a tropical disease

I'm bed-ridden with.

I hear my summons

from a sacred room

where she's praying for me,

where I'm no soldier,

but I'm hallowed

by her memory

of my small feet.

I'm a liar. I let her saints in

my nights of penitence,

stick their fingers and

stir a carnival of dispersion,

contract my ailment,

make them believe I still need them.