Trigger Warnings
The Orchid Mantis lashes out, snatches a hummingbird in open daylight. A child
traverses the birth canal in time to get slapped, take its first breath.
A monk douses himself on fire while bystanders slurp Phô and thumb
Instagram. In this life silence comes at a price, a man chain smokes cigars
missing everyone gone. He opts for a slow death, gambles on the stats.
All of it a reminder that somewhere a switch board operator is absent.
And we delight in pushing All the wrong buttons. Waiting for the quiet end.
DAYS OF QUARANTINE
That sound you hear in the distance are the children rattling in the cages.
Their moans deafen the vain preacher who bites the head off snakes and begs
for forgiveness. My wife points out my toy nails are long. My hands tremble some ancient
tune to remind us we’ve not been here before. The hour of no return is upon us all, and yet
you keep polishing your guns. Foolishness and bluff. You’ve cursed all children with lies and chuck&jive.
Into the dust and rubble we go and the earth shall not welcome us ever again. So it is written in sick blood.
A GATHERING OF LADIES AROUND A BONFIRE
After midnight they emerge from the woods
and gather around a fire. Wrapped in dark
frocks and blankets, they huddle and stay warm.
The fire yellows their faces as they clasp hands.
The leaden air feels heavy and hard to breathe.
All of them have been poisoned, some show
the sickness in their eyes and exposed flesh.
They sing. They cry. The small children hide
their faces in the extra folds of the garments.
They are dying. They are singing about dying.
The men, first responders, rushed into the hell
of the burning reactors at the power plant.
The men will never return. The women stare
at the fire, their breaths mix with the night’s dew.
Nobody will be here at sunrise, the fire smolders
into orange embers, ashes dance in the breeze.
Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1962. At the age of twelve he arrived in the United States. He received an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1987. His work has appeared in a multitude of magazines and journals internationally. He has been taking photographs on the road for the last three decades. When he is not writing, he is out riding his motorcycle up and down the Blue Highways of the Southeast, photographing disappearing urban and rural landscapes. His 10th volume of poetry, THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Spring of 2020.